Which one would be led to suppose

Was meant for the head of a fiddle.

Miss Tabby has two pretty eyes,
Glass buttons shone never so bright,

Their love-lighted lustre outvies

The lightning-bug's twinkle by night.

And oft with a magical glance,

She makes in my bosom a pother,

When leering politely askance,

She shuts one, and winks with the other.

The lips of my charmer are sweet,

As a hogshead of maple molasses, And the ruby red tint of her cheek, The gill of a salmon surpasses.

No teeth like her's ever were seen,
Nor ever describ'd in a novel,

Of a beautiful kind of pea-green,

And shap'd like a wooden-shod-shovel.

N

Her fine little ears, you would judge,
Were wings of a bat in perfection;
A dollar I never should grudge

To put them in Peale's grand collection.

Description must fail in her chin,
At least till our language is richer,
Much fairer than ladle of tin,

Or beautiful brown earthen pitcher.

So pretty a neck, I'll be bound,

Never join'd head and body together, Like nice crook'd neck'd squash on the ground, Long whiten'd by winter-like weather.

The charms of her bosom would you, sir,

To form an idea be able,

A couple of oranges view, sir,

On a brownish mahogany table.

Should I set forth the rest of her charms,
I might by some phrase that's improper,
Give modesty's bosom alarms,

Which I wouldn't do for a copper.

Should I mention her gait or her air,

You might think I intended to banter;

She moves with more grace, you would swear, Than a founder'd horse forc'd to a canter.

She sang with a beautiful voice,

Which ravish'd you out of your senses; A pig will make just such a noise

When his hind-leg stuck fast in the fence is.

CANTO II.

NOW reader, be patient the while
That your musical maker of metre
May set forth the graces in style

Of Tabitha Towzer's friend Peter.

He's tall, like swamp cedar, I ween,
But shrub-oak was never so nurly :*

Like crab-apple juice was his mien,

And they christened him Peter the Surly.

He went every winter to school,

But wrought on a farm in the summer;

Was not very far from a fool,

But made a most capital drummer.t

* A yankeyism, for knotty, or gnarled.

† In New England every citizen, with a very few legal exemptions, is a soldier. Among the peasantry, playing the fife and drum are thought fine accomplishments.

He'd read Morse's geography through,
Of novels some few, and romances,
Had courted of girls, one or two,

But never could tickle their fancies.

For he was so awkward a chap,

That the girls would have none of his fumbling,

*

But gave him the bag, with a slap,

And sent Mister Peter home grumbling.

But truely he was, on the whole,

A young man that wasn't so shabby, The neighbours all thought it was droll, If he wouldn't do for Miss Tabby.

For he was so brawny and stout,

That his prowess exceeded all praising,

There wasn't a lad thereabout

Could wrestle so well at " A Raising."*

"Gave him the bag," see note p. 39.

"A Raising," so termed in New England, is erecting the frame of a wooden building, of which description