My Father Christmas passed away When I was barely seven. At twenty—one, alack—a—day, I lost my hope of heaven. Yet not in either lies the curse:

Me and Ed and a stretcher Out on the nootral ground. (If there’s one dead corpse, I’ll… There’s a 'undred smellin’ around.… Me and Eddie O’Brian,

She was so wonderful I wondered If wedding me she had not blundere… She was so pure, so high above me, I marvelled how she came to love m… Or did she? Well, in her own fash…

A hundred people I employed, But when they struck for higher pa… I was so damnably annoyed I told them they could stay away. I simply shut my business down;

The daughter of the village Maire Is very fresh and very fair, A dazzling eyeful; She throws upon me such a spell That though my love I dare not te…

I opened wide the bath—room door, And all at once switched on the li… When moving swift across the floor I saw a streak of ebon bright: Then quick, with slipper in my han…

Clorinda met me on the way As I came from the train; Her face was anything but gay, In fact, suggested pain. “Oh hubby, hubby dear!” she cried,

There once was a Square, such a s… And he loved a trim Triangle; But she was a flirt and around her… Vainly she made him dangle. Oh he wanted to wed and he had no…

Don’t cheer, damn you! Don’t chee… Silence! Your bitterest tear Is fulsomely sweet to—day. . . . Down on your knees and pray. See, they sing as they go,

The portrait there above my bed They tell me is a work of art; My Wife,—since twenty years she’s… Her going nearly broke my heart. Alas! No little ones we had

I thought I would go daft when Jo… He was my first, and wise beyond h… For nigh a hundred nights I cried… Until my weary eyes burned up my t… Willie and Rosie tried to comfort…

So often in the mid of night I wake me in my bed With utter panic of affright To find my feet are dead; And pace the floor to easy my pain

Maids In May Three maids there were in meadow b… The eldest less then seven; Their eyes were dancing with delig… And innocent as Heaven.

A father’s pride I used to know, A mother’s love was mine; For swinish husks I let them go, And bedded with the swine. Since then I’ve come on evil days