22¢

SEVENTEENTH EVENING.

Dire was the clash; down fell the booths,
And made a dreadful pother.

Nuts, oranges, and gingerbread,
And figs here roll’d around ;

And scissors, knives, and thimbles there,
Bestrew’d the gltt’ring ground.

~The fall of boards, the shouts and crivs,

Urged on the horses faster ;
And, as they flew, at ev’ry step,
They caused some new disaster.

flere lay, o’erturned, in woful plight,
A pedlar and his pack ;

There, in a showman’s broken box,
All London went to wreck.

But now the fates decreed to stop
The ruin of the day,

And make the gig, and driver too,
A heavy reck’ning pay.

A ditch there lay, both broad and deep,
Where streams, as black as Styx,
From every quarter of the town,
Their muddy currents mix.

Down to its brink, in heedless haste,
The frantic horses flew,

And in the midst, with sudden ierk,
Their burden overthrew.

The prostrate gig, with desp’rate force,
They soon pull’d out again,

' And, at their heels, in ruin dire,

Drage’d, lumb’ring, o’er the plain.
Here lay a wheel, the axle there,
The body there remain’d,
Till, sever’d limb from limb, the car,
Nor name nor shape retain’d.