WHEN King Dick the lion-hearted, pack'd his luggage

up and started,

(Vide Hume and Smollett passim) for a trip to Palestine,

Tall young men, though half unwilling to accept the offer'd

shilling.

Left their wives and little children, and enlisted in the line.

Wot ye well that there was grieving when those tall young men

were leaving;

Wot ye well that there was business being done in locks of

hair;

Wot ye well that rings were broken, and presented as a token,

By the noblest of the noble to the fairest of the fair.

Said a soldier, on the shady side of forty, to a lady

Who was buckling on his burgonet, his breastplate, and his

brand;

"By my halidom, I'd rather, as a husband and a father,

Stop at home than go crusading in that blessed Holy Land."

"Yes, I know as well as you, dear, it's the proper thing to do,

dear;

And I'm not afraid of fighting, (as I think I said before;)

But it's not without emotion that I contemplate the notion

Of a trip across the channel in a British man-of-war.

"No, it's not at all a question of alarm, but indigestion;

Not the lances of the Paynim, but the passage in the gale,

When the awful cry of 'Steward' from the windward and the

leeward,

From a hundred lips arises, when a hundred lips are pale!"

"Yes, I know you 're very sickly," said his lady, rather quickly;

But you 'll take a cup of sherris or a little Malvoisie,

When you get as far as Dover;—and when once you 're half-

seas over,

Why you 'll find yourself as jolly as you possibly can be."

So her lord and master started, just a trifle chicken-hearted,

And, it may be, just a trifle discontented with his lot;

But whether he got sick, or felt the better for the liquor

That his lady recommended, this deponent sayeth not.