now his creditors resolved
To seize on his assets;
For why,--they found that his half-pay
Did not half pay his debts.

But Luff contrived a novel mode
His creditors to chouse;
For his own execution he
Put into his own house!
A pistol to the muzzle charged
He took devoid of fear;
Said he, "This barrel is my last,
So now for my last bier!"

Against his lungs he aimed the slugs,
And not against his brain,
So he blew out his lights--and none
Could blow them in again!
A Jury for a Verdict met,
And gave in it these terms:--
"We find as how as certain slugs
Has sent him to the worms!"

MORNING MEDITATIONS.

Let Taylor preach upon a morning breezy
How well to rise while nights and larks are flying--
For my part getting up seems not so easy
By half as _lying_.

What if the lark does carol in the sky,
Soaring beyond the sight to find him out--
Wherefore am I to rise at such a fly?
I'm not a trout.

Talk not to me of bees and such like hums,
The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime--
Only lee long enough, and bed becomes
A bed of _time_.

To me Dan Phoebus and his car are nought,
His steeds that paw impatiently about,--
Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought,
The first turn-out!

Right beautiful the dewy meads appear
Besprinkled by the rosy-finger'd girl;
What then,--if I prefer my pillow-beer
To early pearl?

My stomach is not ruled by other men's,
And grumbling for a reason, quaintly begs
"Wherefore should master rise before the hens
Have laid their eggs?"

Why from a comfortable pillow start
To see faint flushes in the east awaken?
A fig, say I, for any streaky part,
Excepting bacon.

An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn,
Who used to haste the dewy grass among,
"To meet the sun upon the upland lawn"--
Well--he died young.

With charwomen such early hours agree,
And sweeps, that earn betimes their bit and sup;
But I'm no climbing boy, and need not be
"All up--all up!"

So here I'll lie, my morning calls deferring,
Till something nearer to the stroke of noon;--
A man that's fond precociously of _stirring_,
Must be a spoon.

A PLAIN DIRECTION.

"Do you never deviate?"
_John Bull_.

In London once I lost my way
In faring to and fro,
And ask'd a little ragged boy
The way that I should go;

He gave a nod, and then a wink,
And told me to get there