Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 094.djvu/495



was a widow, once upon a time—

Yet stop—with truth we must commence our rhyme—

She had been such, but now another spouse

Had sought her love, and won the widow's vows.

One evening she was quite alone at home

For the best husbands sometimes like to roam);

She sat, her cheek reposing on her hand,

The tea-things spread upon the table, and

The kettle singing by, or on the fire—

A sort of a monotonous steam lyre:

Her thoughts from this low world of fogs had flown

Up to the husband she first called her own;

She could not quite the dear, kind soul forget—

And ah! the other one was absent yet.

"But thou art happy now," she cried—"in case

In Abraham's bosom thou hast found a place:

Thou pitiest us, in these rooms close and old,

Where one so often gets a cough or cold."

Then into a brown study she did fall,

When suddenly some sounds her thoughts recal;

She hears a gentle knocking at the door;

She starts—looks at the roof, then at the floor—

Then peers into each corner, as she cries,

"Well—who is there?" To be right brave she tries,

But truth to tell, she almost shook with fear

To see some ghost, or corpse-like form appear.

Another knock—then in the doorway stood

No spectre, but a youth of flesh and blood.

'Twas an apprentice who had run away

From work, and chose from town to town to stray;

The rogue lived by his wits as best he might,

For naught he scrupled at— except to fight.

The quondam widow very soon perceived

The intruder was not what she had believed— That he was mortal, not a form of air.

She questioned whence he came, and also where

He might be bound. "I'm on my way," said he,

"To Paris, madam, viâ Germany."

With joyous heart she listened to his tale,

And then she placed before him meat and ale,

Kindly inviting him to eat and drink;

While she exclaimed, "How very strange to think

That you to Paradise are journeying on!—

Why, that’s the land where my first husband's gone!

Please give my love to him, our daughter's, too,

And—his successor's compliments, will you?"