A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT.

THEY 're stepping off, the friends I knew, They 're going, one by one,

They're taking wives, to tame their lives, Their jovial days are done—

I can't get one old crony now,

To join me in a spree;

They've all grown grave domestic men, They look askance at me.

I hate to see them sober'd down,
The merry boys and true,

I hate to hear them sneering now
At pictures fancy drew

I care not for their marriage cneer,

Their puddings and their soups, And middle-aged relations round

In formidable groups.

And though their wife perchance may have

A comely sort of face,

And at the table's

upper end

O give me back the days again,
When we have wander'd free,
And stole the dew from ev'ry flower,

The fruit from every tree :

The friends I love-they will not come―

They 've all deserted me;

They sit at home and toast their toes,

Look stupid, and sip tea.

By Jove! they go to bed at ten,
And rise at half-past nine;
And seldom do they now exceed
A pint or so of wine;

They play at whist for sixpences,

They very rarely dance,

They never read a word of rhyme,

Nor open a romance.

They talk, good Lord! of politics,

Of taxes, and of crops;

And very quietly, with their wives,

They go about to shops;

They get quite skilled in groceries,

And learned in butcher meat, And know exactly what they pay For every thing they eat.

And then they all get children too,

To squall through thick and thin,
And seem right proud to multiply
Small images of sin;

And yet you may depend upon't,
Ere half their days are told,
Their sons are taller than themselves,
And they are counted old.

Alas! alas! for years gone by,
And for the friends I've lost,
When no warm feeling of the heart
Was chill'd by early frost;
If these be Hymen's vaunted joys,
I'd have him shun my door,

Unless he'll quench his torch, and live
Henceforth a bachelor.

THE FATE OF SERGEANT THIN.

A NEW ORIGINAL BALLAD ENTIRELY FOUNDED ON FACT.

WEEP for the fate of Sergeant Thin,

A man of a desperate courage was he,
More he rejoiced in the battle's din,
Than in all the mess-room revelry;

But he died at last of no ugly gash

He choked on a hair of his own moustache!

Sergeant Thin was stern and tall,

And he carried his head with a wonderful air;
He looked like a man who could never fall
For devil or don he did not care;
But death soon settled the Sergeant's hash -
He choked on a hair of his own moustache !

He did not die as a soldier should,

Smiting a foe with sword in hand,

He died when he was not the least in the mood,
When his temper was more than usually bland;
He just had fastened his sabre tash,

When he choked on a hair of his own moustache!

Sorely surprised was he to find

That his life thus hung on a single hair : Had he been drinking until he grew blind,

It would have been something more easy to bear; Or had he been eating a cart-load of trash

But he choked on a hair of his own moustache!

The news flew quickly along the ranks,

And the whisker'd and bearded grew pale with fright;

It seemed the oddest of all death's pranks,
To murder a sergeant by means so slight;
And vain were a general's state and cash,
If he choked on a hair of his own moustache !

They buried poor Thin when the sun went down,
His
cap and his sword on his coffin lay;

But many a one, from the neighbouring town,

Came smilingly up to the sad array;

For they said with a laughter they could not quash,
That he choked on a hair of his own moustache !

Now every gallant and gay hussar,

Take warning by this most mournful tale

It is not only bullet or scar

That may your elegant form assail

Be not too bold be not too rash

You may choke on a hair of your own moustache!