JEMMY DAWSON.

WRITTEN ABOUT THE TIME OF HIS EXECUTION,
IN THE YEAR 1745.

COME listen to my mournful tale,
Ye tender hearts and lovers dear!
Nor will you scorn to hear a sigh,
Nor need you blush to shed a tear.

And thou, dear Kitty! peerless maid!
Do thou a pensive ear incline;
For thou canst weep at every woe,
And pity every plaint-but mine.

Young Dawson was a gallant boy,
A brighter never trod the plain,
And well he loved one charming maid,
And dearly was he loved again.

One tender maid, she loved him dear;
Of gentle blood the damsel came;
And faultless was her beauteous form,
And spotless was her virgin fame.

But curse on party's hateful strife
That led the favour'd youth astray,
The day the rebel clans appear'd;
Oh, had he never seen that day!

Their colours and their sash he wore,
And in the fatal dress was found:
And now he must that death endure

Which gives the brave the keenest wound.

How pale was then his truelove's cheek,
When Jemmy's sentence reach'd her ear!
For never yet did Alpine snows
So pale or yet so chill appear.

With faltering voice she, weeping, said,
"O Dawson! monarch of my heart!
Think not thy death shall end our loves,
For thou and I will never part.

"Yet might sweet mercy find a place,
And bring relief to Jemmy's woes,
O George! without a prayer for thee
My orisons should never close.

“The gracious prince that gave him life Would crown a never-dying flame, And every tender babe I bore

Should learn to lisp the giver's name.

"But though he should be dragg'd in scorn To yonder ignominious tree,

He shall not want one constant friend
To share the cruel fate's decree."

Oh! then her mourning coach was call'd; The sledge moved slowly on before; Though borne in a triumphal car,

She had not loved her favourite more.

She follow'd him, prepared to view
The terrible behests of law,
And the last scene of Jemmy's woes
With calm and stedfast eye she saw.

Distorted was that blooming face

Which she had fondly loved so long, And stifled was that tuneful breath Which in her praise had sweetly sung.

And severed was that beauteous neck
Round which her arms had fondly closed,
And mangled was that beauteous breast
On which her lovesick head reposed:

And ravished was that constant heart
She did to every heart prefer;
For though it could its king forget,
'Twas true and loyal still to her.

Amid those unrelenting flames

She bore this constant heart to see, But when 'twas moulder'd into dust, "Yet, yet," she cried, "I follow thee.

My death, my death alone can shew
The pure, the lasting love I bore:
Accept, O Heaven! of woes like ours,
And let us, let us weep no more.'

The dismal scene was o'er and pass'd,
The lover's mournful hearse retired;
The maid drew back her languid head,
And sighing forth his name, expired.

Though justice ever must prevail,
The tear my Kitty sheds is due,
For seldom shall she hear a tale
So sad, so tender, yet so true.

A BALLAD.

FROM Lincoln to London rode forth our young squire,
To bring down a wife whom the swains might admire;
But in spite of whatever the mortal could say,
The goddess objected the length of the way.

To give up the opera, the park, and the ball,
For to view the stag's horns in an old country hall;
To have neither China nor India to see,

Nor a laceman to plague in a morning-not she!

To forsake the dear playhouse, Quin, Garrick, and Clive,
Who by dint of mere humour had kept her alive;
To forego the full box for his lonesome abode,

O heavens! she should faint, she should die on the road!

To forget the gay fashions and gestures of France,
And to leave dear Auguste in the midst of the dance,
And harlequin, too!-'twas in vain to require it,
And she wondered how folks had the face to desire it.

To be sure she could breathe nowhere else than in town;
Thus she talk'd like a wit, and he look'd like a clown;
But the while honest Harry despaired to succeed,
A coach with a coronet trailed her to Tweed.