"He's not so wise as some folks be," "The devil take his wisdom!" said The Doctor, looking somewhat grim, "What, woman! should I know of him?" And, grumbling, he went back to bed. "O woe is me! O woe is me! "I thought to find my Johnny here, "Oh! what a wretched mother I!" She stops, she stands, she looks about, The clock strikes three-a dismal knell! Then up along the town she hies, This piteous news so much it shock'd her, To comfort poor old Susan Gale. And now she's high upon the down, She listens, but she cannot hear The streams with softest sound are flowing, The grass you almost hear it growing, You hear it now if e'er you can. The owlets through the long blue night Fond lovers, yet not quite hob nob, That echoes far from hill to hill. Poor Betty now has lost all hope, And now she sits her down and weeps ; Such tears she never shed before; "Oh dear, dear pony! my sweet joy! "Oh carry back my idiot boy! "And we will ne'er o'erload thee more." A thought it come into her head; "And we have always used him well; Perhaps he's gone along the dell, "And carried Johnny to the wood." Then up she springs as if on wings; The last of all her thoughts would be, To drown herself therein. Oh reader! now that I might tell What Johnny and his horse are doing! What they've been doing all this time, Oh could I put it into rhyme, A most delightful tale pursuing! Perhaps, and no unlikely thought! Perhaps he's turned himself about, And still and mute, in wonder lost, And now, perhaps, he's hunting sheep, A fierce and dreadful hunter he ! Yon valley, that's so trim and green, In five months' time, should he be seen, A desart wilderness will be. I |