A Roads and Bridges Romance.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 44, 20 July 1885, Page 4

A Roads and Bridges Romance.

(To the Editor of the Evening Press.) Sir, — The following original adaptation from Tennyson's " Brook," illusr t rates t lie progress of a Kirori resident along that portion of tho road .which skirts tho Botanical Gardens :— I give my pants another turn "• ■ I make a desperate rally, And as tho slush I slowly churn,. I think ot h>jme and Sally. The great slopes I slither down, Or stick between the rid^us, Of nit hv ooze, a slimy brown, Aud look m vain for bridges. - Till past a fertid drain I v;o, Enough to turn one's liver, Of this the Cuunciluien must know, Yet this is altered never. A poor fellow died not long as;o of : typhoid fever, probably contracted when traveling along this same road; there is mora mud now, and the smell at one paticular poiut is somewhat stronger :— : I try iv vain to find a* track, : And probe the mud for pebbles, The ceaseless rain drips down niy back, ! And mmy boots it settles. ; .My teeth now chatter as I go, .' ■ And {all my muscles shiver, I But li'oihe somehow, I've got to go, Though I go ou for over. ; Some ha'ye caught their death of cold," I've heard on thu samn road. Our City Fathers ought to Walk out hero just now instead of driving out m high- wheeled gigs iri summer time : — Igo on sliding m aud out, ' ' All hppo of rescue failing, , • - Fi'Qui depth's'of mire I struggle out, - Assisted by a paling. "' . . And. here and there a rest I take, . Before the hill I travel, And wish, as off the mud I scrape, All Road Boards to the Devil. ' At! this point, weather -permitting, 'I 1 generally hang myself accrosa the fence to drain. . : . .',.'.'' ; Anfl.on my way again I go,J With many a growl aud shiver f (Is this neglect, I'd like to know, . \ To go unchecked for ever ?) : But thoughts of dinner, pipinghot, Beueath a shining cover, ■ Whisper a aweet forget-mo-not, ■; ("Dear Sally, how I love her !") : By slips and slides I thus advance,? c I wade through liquid hollows, But some I leap, and when by chance I : .fall, you -know what follows. ; And don't I thank my lucky stars, : Ah 1 how my soul it fetches, When lamplight's gleam of golden bars Accrpss the roadway .stretches. : Thus homeward on that road I go," •Awbrse'roadsawl never, ' Tis somewhat cdnifortin'g to kridw : It can't go on for ever. ; Yes, aud its comforting also, m looking liack, to, see another fellow,emerging from th'e p'uddlo you have just. ' loft j excoptoi'ating mud, and removing it from his ears with tho crook . of bis walking stick. ■ . ; E. F. W.