Poetry.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 402, 10 September 1856, Page 4

Poetry.

CHARADES ON UNPOPULAR SUBJECTS, No. 2. " AJf OLD TALE JkSD OFTEN TOl.D.''' Sir Hugh he had passed a restless night— He woke at the earliest touch of -light, One fair and frosty morning; The snn was rising—all earth seemed gay; And my first, bedecking each blade and spray, Shone bright in the glorious dawning; " My life," quoth he, " is very slow, I'm weary of sheep, and smoke, aad sighs, The sky is as blue as Ellen's eyes, The road and its dangers I'll despise, And to Chrisfchnrch I vrill go." Merrily on through flax and sand, Merrily over the fern-grown land, He rode, with a loosened rein '. Firmly and fleetly his charger trade, As he neared his lady-love's abode ; And nor care nor stay did his heart forbode, Till he came to where a Government road Traversed the swampy, plain ; , A moment hepaused, for lie oft had heard How that road,grew worse the more it was stirred, Aad with damage and danger was strowed ; But he thought of his coat so spick aad span. And the boots he had blacked with his "am riebthan'," And he looked at the swamp—-unhai^py man! And onward, alas! he rode. Perchance had he known that a week before That luckless road had been " mended," The doubts with which his mind ran o'er Par otherwise had ended; But nothing knew he—that wight go green— How manuka branches with holes between Far down in the mud had plunged teen, A pitfall for man and beast I ween ! So on. he rode towards fair Ellen's home, And on welcome kind he reckoned,— When his horse gave one plnnge,- and then stood still, la despair to achieve my second. : No more do I know, whether out he came, Or on whatyor oa whom they; laid the blame Of rider in tatters, and steed dead lame, From Ellen and oats debarred ! I kno^r bnt that, while in the mud so soft He bewailed bis fate so hard, My jf hole came by on a dray aloft, • And indited this charade.