Bob Ruly's Experiences at the Fair [pp. 453-458]

Bob Ruly's Experiences at the Fair.
Like the stars in the heaven, the sands on the shore,
The bees from a hive, and a thousand things moreYet three "I select from that" wonderful "throngo,"
(As Harold once said in his glorious song,)Tom Tipple, so drunk that he scarcely could stand,
Staggers up through the bar-room to give me his handAnd says, " should acquaintance so old be forgot,"
And I thought that it should though the poet thought not.
I hate of all things to be cold, but indeed he
Was so very drunk and so shockingly seedy He had "got on a lark," (the flash phrase of the age,)
And you felt that his flight would be stopped in the cageHe smelt of tobacco and whiskey and ale,
Was bound to be bound, and suggestive of bail.
Then there was Hal Hazard, all pluck to the marrow,
Yet like Moses persisting in dealing with FaroBut as Byron declares in the worst of his pieces
"In this the resemblance between the twain ceases"For this passion I've known him to recklessly pawn dress,
And e'en for a stake he would swindle his laundressThough to judge from the state of his collar and vest
Her place was a sinecure office at best.
Dick Doless was there, ever anxious to borrow
Some trifling amount, he'd return it to-morrow —
But never shall sun that to-morrow behold
As the Lady Macbeth of king Duncan foretold.
Yet Richard by far was the best of the set,
Though loose in his contracts, and always in debtAnd I think that he came to the Fair, Mr. Editor,
To get rid of some ghost in the shape of a creditor.
He was crammed with "due" tickets, (maturity past,)
Like the dews of the twilight they ever fell fast;
And still to the banks and the shavers a votary,
More than half of his income was due to the notaryIn the justice of which debt he never believed,
For a protest he thought was not value received.
I conceived the bold plan to escape from this trio
(Whose portraits I've drawn with the pencil of Clio,)
So "I threw off my friends, like a huntsman his pack,"
And life's hunt will be o'er ere I "whistle them back;"
Then, leaving the gentlemen draining a flagon,
I was whirled to the Fair in a furniture-wagon.
And oh, as I passed through the South-eastern portal
What a scene of delight met the eye of this mortal!
Not 2Eneas when first the bright Campus Elysian
Extended before his beatified visionBut a truce to the classics, my puir "muse maun cower.
Sic" adventurous "flights are beyond her young power"And so with a strain less sublime I'll relate
What I saw as I passed through the South-eastern gate
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DECEMBER