“Never durst the missis enter here until I've said‘ Come in'...

“Never durst the missis enter here until I've said‘ Come in':

If I saw the master peeping, I'd catch up the rolling-pin.

Christmas-boxes, that's a something; perkisites, that's something too;

And I think, take all together, John, I wo n't be on with you.”

John the coachman took his hat up, for he thought he'd had enough;

Rubbed an elongated forehead with a meditative cuff;

Paused before the stable doorway; said, when there, in accents mild,

“She's a fine young‘ oman, cook is; but that's where it is, she's spiled.”

I have read in some not marvellous tale,

( Or if I have not, I've dreamed )

Of one who filled up the convivial cup

Till the company round him seemed

To be vanished and gone, tho’ the lamps upon

Their face as aforetime gleamed:

And his head sunk down, and a Lethe crept

O'er his powerful brain, and the young man slept.

Then they laid him with care in his moonlit bed:

But first — having thoughtfully fetched some tar -

Adorned him with feathers, aware that the weather's

Uncertainty brings on at nights catarrh.

They staid in his room till the sun was high:

But still did the feathered one give no sign

Of opening a peeper — he might be a sleeper

Such as rests on the Northern or Midland line.

At last he woke, and with profound

Bewilderment he gazed around;

Dropped one, then both feet to the ground,

But never spake a word:

Then to my WHOLE he made his way;

Took one long lingering survey;

And softly, as he stole away,

Remarked, “By Jove, a bird!”