A false note is really fun 5 The nightingale shyly took Her head from under her wing, And, giving the dove a look, Straightway began to sing. There was never a bird could pass; The night was divinely calm; And the people stood on the grass To hear that wonderful psalm. 6 The nightingale did not care, Her song ascended there, And there she fixed her eyes. The people that stood below She knew but little about; And this tale has a moral, I know, If you'll try and find it out. -Jean Ingelow. FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY This is a poem of puns. A pun is the lowest order of wit, but some of these are exceedingly clever. Every stanza has a play on the double meaning of words or phrases, and these double meanings should be sought out. For example, the last word in the tenth stanza might be spelled either "Nell" or "Knell," for the author intends it to have both of these meanings. In the twelfth stanza, the last word means both the infantry and the rope with which the soldier is about to hang himself. The reader should study out all of these double meanings or puns-there are more than a dozen of them-for the poem is simply an exercise in turning words to eccentric uses. A list of these verbal twists might be made. There is nothing else of value in the piece. "Forty-second Foot," in stanza two, means the Forty-second Company of Infantry. FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY 1 Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war's alarms; But a cannon ball took off his legs, 2 Now, as they bore him off the field, 3 The army surgeons made him limbs; 4 Now Ben, he loved a pretty maid, 5 But when he called on Nelly Gray, 6 "O Nelly Gray! O Nelly Gray! Should be more uniform!" 7 Said she, "I loved a soldier once, 8 "Before you had these timber toes, Your love I did allow, But then, you know, you stand upon Another footing now!" 9 "O false and fickle Nelly Gray! I know why you refuse: Though I've no feet-some other man Is standing in my shoes! 10 "I wish I ne'er had seen your face; For you will be my death;-alas! 11 Now when he went from Nelly Gray, His heart so heavy got, And life was such a burden grown, It made him take a knot! 12 So round his melancholy neck And for the second time in life Enlisted in the Line! 13 One end he tied around a beam, 14 And there he hung till he was dead For, though distress had cut him up, It could not cut him down! -Thomas Hood. BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE Sir John Moore, commanding the British forces in Spain in the war with Napoleon, was killed at the battle of Corunna, Spain, January 16, 1809. The battle occurred at the end of a long and hard retreat, and although the English had the advantage, they embarked at Corunna after the battle and returned to England. |