THE APPLE-DUMPLINGS AND A KING. ONCE on a time, a monarch, tired with whooping, whipping and spurring, Happy in worrying A poor defenceless buck (The horse and rider wet as muck), From his high consequence and wisdom stooping, Entered through curiosity a cot, The wrinkled, blear-eyed, good old granny, In this same cot illumined by many a cranny, Had finished apple-dumplings for her pot: Then taking up a dumpling in his hand, ""Tis monstrous, monstrous hard, indeed! What makes it, pray, so hard?" The dame replied, I tell you our minister's prime, he is, Just who was hit by his sermon. Low courtesying, "Please your majesty, Of course there couldn't be no mistake the apple." When he talked of long-winded prayin', For Peters and Johnson they sot and scowled At every word he was sayin'. And the minister he went on to say, In cheatin' and over-reachin'." I guess that dose was bitter enough For a man like Johnson to swallow, But I noticed that he didn't open his mouth But once after that to holler. The minister hit 'em every time, And when he spoke of fashion, And riggin's-out in bows and things, As women's ruling passion, And coming to church to see the styles, I couldn't help a-winkin', THE MEN OF WARE. THERE were three young men of Ware, They said, "Such men as we are rare," And a-nudgin' my wife, and says I, The first he was a son of art; That's you," And I guess it sot her a-thinkin’. Says I to myself, "That sermon's pat, But man's a queer creation, And I'm much afraid that most of the folks Won't take the application." Now, if he had said a word about My personal mode of sinnin', I'd have gone to work to right myself, Just then the minister, says he, "And now I've come to the fellers Who've lost this shower by usin' their friends As a sort o' moral umbrellas; Go home," says he, "and find your faults, Go home," says he, "and wear the coats The second had a poet's heart; My wife she nudged, and Brown he Of mild and melancholy air, |