By sudden change in politics,

Or sadder change in Polly,

You lose your love or loaves, and fall
A prey to melancholy;
While everybody marvels why

Your mirth is under ban,

They think your very grief 'a joke,'
You're such a funny man!

You follow up a stylish card
That bids you come and dine,
And bring along your freshest wit
(To pay for musty wine);
You're looking very dismal, when
My lady bounces in,

And wonders what you're thinking of,
And why you don't begin!

You're telling to a knot of friends

A fancy-tale of woes

That cloud your matrimonial sky,

And banish all repose

A solemn lady overhears

The story of your strife,

And tells the town the pleasant news:
You quarrel with your wife!

My dear young friend, whose shining wit

Sets all the room a-blaze,

Don't think yourself 'a happy dog,'

For all your merry ways;

But learn to wear a sober phiz,
Be stupid, if you can,

It's such a very serious thing

To be a funny man!

NEIGHBOUR NELLY.

ROBERT B. BROUGH.

I'm in love with Neighbour Nelly,
Though I know she's only ten;
While, alas, I'm eight-and-forty,
And the marriedest of men.
I've a wife that weighs me double,
I've three daughters all with beaux ;

I've a son with noble whiskers,

Who at me turns up his nose.

Though a squaretoes and a fogey,
Yet I've sunshine in my heart;
Still, I'm fond of cakes and marbles-
Can appreciate a tart;

I can love my Neighbour Nelly
Just as though I were a boy :
I could hand her cakes and apples
From my depths of corduroy.

She is tall, and growing taller;
She is vigorous of limb;
(You should see her play at cricket

With her little brother Jim!)

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She has eyes as blue as damsons;
She has pounds of auburn curls;
She regrets the game of leap-frog
Is prohibited to girls!

I adore my Neighbour Nelly,
I invite her in to tea,
And I let her nurse the baby,
Her delightful ways to see.
Such a darling bud of woman!
Yet remote from any teens-

I have learnt from Neighbour Nelly
What the girls' doll-instinct means.

Oh, to see her with the baby!
(He adores her more than I,)
How she choruses his crowing,
How she hushes every cry!
How she loves to pit his dimples,
With her light forefinger deep!
How she boasts, as one in triumph,
When she gets him off to sleep!

We must part, my Neighbour Nelly,
For the summers quickly flee,
And the middle-aged admirer,
Must supplanted quickly be.
Yet, as jealous as a mother,
A suspicious, canker'd churl-
I look vainly for the setting
To be worthy such a pearl!

THE TOWN OF PASSAGE.

By the Rev. Francis Mahoney, the Father Prout whose Reliques in Fraser and other magazines are so well known to all lovers of wit, humour, and scholarship. The Town of Passage—the Queenstown of Cork of the present day—is a parody on the Groves of Blarney, a rambling and thoroughly Irish rhapsody; one of those, says Samuel Lover, 'so frequently heard amongst the peasantry, who were much given, of old, to the fustian flights of hedge schoolmasters, who delighted in dealing with gods and goddesses, and high historic personages, and revelled in the Cambyses vein.”’

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THE town of Passage

Is both large and spacious,
And situated

Upon the say;

'Tis nate and dacent,

And quite adjacent,

To come from Cork

On a summer's day.
There you may slip in
To take a dippin',
Forenent the shippin'
That at anchor ride ;
Or in a wherry

Cross o'er the ferry
To Carrigaloe

On the other side.

Mud cabins swarm in

This place so charmin',

With sailors' garments

Hung out to dry;

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And each abode is
Snug and commodious,
With pigs melodious,

In their strawbuilt sty. 'Tis there the turf is, And lots of murphies,

Dead sprats, and herrings,

And oyster-shells;

Nor any lack, oh!

Of good tobacco,

Though what is smuggled

By far excels.

There are ships from Cadiz,

And from Barbadoes,

But the leading trade is

In whisky punch;

And you may go in

Where one Molly Bowen

Keeps a nate hotel

For a quiet lunch.

But land or deck on,
You may safely reckon,

Whatsoever country

You come hither from,

Or an invitation

To a jollification

With a parish priest,

That's called 'Father Tom.'