Young Joe, he was a carman gay,
As any town could show;
His team was good, and, like his pence,
Was always on the go;
A thing, as every jackass knows,
Which often leads to _wo_!
It fell out that he fell in love,
By some odd chance or whim,
With Alice Payne--beside whose eyes
All other eyes were dim:
The painful tale must out--indeed,
She was _A Pain_ to him.
For, when he ask’d her civilly
To make one of _they_ two,
She whipp’d her tongue across her teeth,
And said, “D’ye think it true,
I’d trust my _load_ of life with _sich_
A waggoner as you?
“No, no--to be a carman’s wife
Will ne’er suit Alice Payne;
I’d better far a lone woman
For evermore remain,
Than have it said, while in my youth,
My life is on the _wain_!”
“Oh, Alice Payne! Oh, Alice Payne!
Why won’t you meet with me?”
Then up she curl’d her nose, and said,
“Go axe your axletree;
I tell you, Joe, this--once for all--
My _joe_ you shall not be.”
She spoke the fatal “no,” which put
A spoke into his wheel--
And stopp’d his happiness, as though
She’d cry _wo!_ to his _weal_:--
These women ever steal our hearts,
And then their own they _steel_.
So round his melancholy neck
Poor Joe his drag-chain tied,
And hook’d it on a hook--“Oh! what
A weight is life!” he cried;
Then off he cast himself--and thus
The cast-off carman died!
Howbeit, as his son was set,
(Poor Joe!) at set of sun,
They laid him in his lowly grave,
And gravely that was done;
And she stood by, and laugh’d outright--
How wrong--the guilty one!
But the day of retribution comes
Alike to prince and hind,
As surely as the summer’s sun
Must yield to wintry wind:
Alas! she did not mind his peace--
So she’d no peace of mind.
For when she sought her bed of rest,
Her rest was all on thorns;
And there another lover stood,
Who wore a pair of horns:
His little tiny feet were cleft,
And cloven, like a fawn’s;
His face and garb were dark and black,
As daylight to the blind;
And a something undefinable
Around his skirt was twin’d--
As if he wore, like other pigs,
His pigtail out behind.
His arms, though less than other men’s,
By no means _harm-less_ were:
Dark elfin locks en lock’d his brow--
You might not call them hair;
And, oh! it was a _gas-tly_ sight
To see his eye-balls glare.
And ever, as the midnight bell
Twelve awful strokes had toll’d,
That dark man by her bedside stood,
Whilst all her blood run cold;
And ever and anon he cried,
“I could a _tail_ unfold!”
And so her strength of heart grew less,
For heart-less she had been;
And on her pallid cheek a small
Red hectic spot was seen:
You could not say her life was spent
Without a spot, I wean.
And they who mark’d that crimson light
Well knew the treach’rous bloom--
A light that shines, alas! alas!
To light us to our tomb:
They said ’twas like thy cross, St. Paul’s,
The _signal_ of her _doom_.
And so it prov’d--she lost her health,
When breath she needed most--
Just as the winning horse gets blown
Close by the winning-post.
The ghost, he gave up plaguing her--
So she gave up the ghost.