Volume 146 — ANNABEL LEE.

Up and down on the fresh-ploughed levels, All for the sake of their lady fair, Two cock-partridges fought like devils, Hammer-and-tongs and a hop in the air; And I and "Basket" Annabel Lee— Elderly tinking gyp is she— We leaned on the paling and watched it go; And "Eh," said she, "now a fight 'tis cruel, But of all the compliments 'tis the jewel! May I die to-day, but I know, I know There's naught as a young maid's 'eart takes better Than a couple o' big chaps out to get her Through a dozen o' dustin' rounds or so. "Bet my bonnet it strikes you funny, Seein' I'm risin' seventy-three, To think o' me once as sweet as honey; Lor' how their fists went 'long o' me! Jake Poltevo and Pembroke Bill, I saw 'em then, and I sees 'em still, Eh, how their fists went—thud! crack! thud! None o' your booze-house scraps, Lor' love 'em; Turf to their feet and the sky above 'em— Stripped, bare-knuckle and mucked wi' blood; Queer thing, ain't it, I still thinks pleasure In the strength o' a man, bein' old, by measure, And plain, you'd say, as a pint o' mud? "Scared me fine at the time, though; weepin' I 'id my face in the 'azels low; Tip-toe soon I was back a-peepin', Couldn't 'a' helped were it never so; Each as good as the other chap— Bad old woman I be, may'ap; But eh, I loved 'em, the fine young men. Marry a one of 'em? Why no, never; They wasn't a-marryin' me whatever; But I likes to think of 'em now and then; For, of all the compliments, that was candy, And—ain't them dicky-birds at it dandy? I knows the pride o' their pretty 'en! Eh, but I loved 'em, me fine young men!"