s soft as pap her kisses are,
Methinks I taste them yet;
Brown as a berry is her hair,
Her eyes as black as jet.

As smooth as glass, as white as curds
Her pretty hand invites;
Sharp as her needle are her words,
Her wit like pepper bites.

Brisk as a body-louse she trips,
Clean as a penny drest;
Sweet as a rose her breath and lips,
Round as the globe her breast.

Full as an egg was I with glee,
And happy as a king:
Good Lord! how all men envied me!
She loved like any thing.

But false as hell, she, like the wind,
Chang'd, as her sex must do;
Though seeming as the turtle kind,
And like the gospel true.

If I and Molly could agree,
Let who would take Peru!
Great as an Emperor should I be,
And richer than a Jew.

Till you grow tender as a chick,
I'm dull as any post;
Let us like burs together stick,
And warm as any toast.

You'll know me truer than a die,
And wish me better sped;
Flat as a flounder when I lie,
And as a herring dead.

Sure as a gun she'll drop a tear
And sigh, perhaps, and wish,
When I am rotten as a pear,
And mute as any fish.

_John Gay._

THE AMERICAN TRAVELLER

To Lake Aghmoogenegamook
All in the State of Maine,
A man from Wittequergaugaum came
One evening in the rain.

"I am a traveller," said he,
"Just started on a tour,
And go to Nomjamskillicook
To-morrow morn at four."

He took a tavern-bed that night,
And, with the morrow's sun,
By way of Sekledobskus went,
With carpet-bag and gun.

A week passed on, and next we find
Our native tourist come
To that sequestered village called
Genasagarnagum.

From thence he went to Absequoit,
And there--quite tired of Maine--
He sought the mountains of Vermont,
Upon a railroad train.

Dog Hollow, in the Green Mount State,
Was his first stopping-place;
And then Skunk's Misery displayed
Its sweetness and its grace.

By easy stages then he went
To visit Devil's Den;
And Scrabble Hollow, by the way,
Did come within his ken.

Then _via_ Nine Holes and Goose Green
He travelled through the State;
And to Virginia, finally,
Was guided by his fate.

Within the Old Dominion's bounds,
He wandered up and down;
To-day at Buzzard's Roost ensconced,
To-morrow, at Hell Town.

At Pole Cat, too, he spent a week,
Till friends from Bull Ring came;
And made him spend a day with them
In hunting forest-game.

Then, with his car