[Sidenote: Secure
your purse
when you
look
at the
sky,
♊ ♏ ♀ ♄
Or so much
the worse
☍ ♈ ☽ ♂
for your
pro-per-ty.
[Illustration]
For some
there live
—how
mel-an-choly!—
who feed
♉ ♒ ♀ ⚹
and thrive
by others'
Folly.]
Some people brave the whelming wave,
A broiling sun, or a frozen life;
Of cutting care I get my share,
The horror of The Carving Knife.
I wish I was a foreigner,
A Hottentot, or a heathen Turk,
Or in a poor-law union, where
They never want a knife and fork.
Before a joint, unhinged, I stand,
When call'd on for a fav'rite bit,
And surely as I try my hand,
So sure I put my foot in it.
Folks say I'm not a useful man;
Yet, anxious to be serviceable,
And do them all the good I can,
They learn, with me, to wait at table.
Patient as martyr at a stake,
I bear the baitings of relations,
Who give no quarter, while they make
O'er mangled lamb their lamentations.
I'm very slow about a brisket;
Bacon's a bore—at duck I quake;
To cut a pheasant's far from pleasant,
And e'en a jelly makes me shake.
From leg I'd rather run away;
Vain flight of fancy is a wing;
A merry thought, I sadly say,
To me is a forbidden thing.
But cut I will, and that full soon,
For some fair land where freedom lingers,
Where I can feed me with a spoon,
Or, like a Frenchman, use my fingers.