MULETEER! my Muleteer!

you haunt me in my slumber!

Through ballads (oh, so many!)

and through songs (oh, such

a number!):

You scale the Guadarrama—

you infest the Pyrenees,

And trot through comic operas

in four and twenty keys.

I hum of you, and whistle too;

I vainly try to banish

The million airs that you pervade in English, French, and

Spanish.

I hold your dark Pepitas and your mules immensely dear,

But you begin to bore me, O eternal Muleteer!

O Gondolier! my Gondolier! pray quit the Adriatic;

That cold lagoon will make me soon incurably asthmatic.

Enough of barcarolling when the moon is in the skies;

I'm sick of the Rialto and I hate the Bridge of Sighs.

Your craft may suit, on summer nights, the songster or the

dreamer;

But, both for speed and elegance, give me the penny steamer.

Your city is romantic, but your songs begin, I fear,

To pall upon me sadly, O eternal Gondolier!

O Cavalier! my Cavalier! for ages and for ages

You 've glared upon me darkly out of scores of title-pages:

I've join'd in all your battles, in your banquets, and your loves

(Including one occasion when you found a pair of gloves:)

I've seen you kiss and ride away—most cowardly behaviour!

But then, to damsels in distress I've seen you act the saviour.

You 're vastly entertaining; but I fancy that I hear

A deal too much about you, O eternal Cavalier!