Volume 93 — BALLADE OF THE TIMID BARD.

In Memory’s mystical hazes I see a vast Gander and grey, I see the small boy that he chases At the head of a hissing array: How I wept when they brought me to bay, How I pleaded in vain for a truce! Too frightened to shoo them away, I could never say Boh to a Goose! I have lived through a number of phases, I have rhymed of the grave and the gay, But the clatter of critical phrases, But the moralist armed for the fray, I have fled in unseemly dismay, Since the Gander—’tis all my excuse— For, in brief, since that terrible day— I could never say Boh to a Goose! It was fabled of old that in places Grow goose-bearing trees by the way, Where bough within bough interlaces Green geese flutter down from the spray; In reviews, at first nights of the play, These shrubs are in general use, And I would not encounter them, nay, I could never say Boh to a Goose! Envoy. Angelica! bid me essay The deeds of a Wallace or Bruce, But talk not of publishing, pray— I could never say Boh to a Goose!