her heart would break
And tore her yellow hair.

And thus she spoke in thrilling tone--
Fell fast the tear-drops big:
"Ah! woe to me! Alas! alas!
The pig! the pig! the pig!"

Then did her wicked father's lips
Make merry wit her woe,
And call her many a naughty name,
Because she whimpered so.

Ye need not weep, ye gentle ones,
In vain your tears are shed,
Ye cannot wash the crimson hand,
Ye cannot sooth the dead.

The bright sun folded on his breast,
His robes of rosey flame,
And softly over all the west
The shades of evening came.

He slept, and troops of murdered pigs
Were busy in his dreams;
Loud rang their wild, unearthly shrieks,
Wide yawned their mortal seams.

The clock struck twelve; the dead hath heard;
He opened both his eyes,
And sullenly he shook his tail
To lash the feeding flies.

One quiver of the hempen cord--
One struggle and one bound--
With stiffened limb and leaded eye,
The pig was on the ground.

And straight towards the sleeper's house
His fearful way he wended;
And hooting owl, and hovering bat,
On midnight wing attended.

Back flew the bolt, uprose the latch,
And open swung the door,
And little mincing feet were heard
Pat, pat, along the floor.

Two hoofs upon the sanded floor,
And two upon the bed;
And they are breathing side by side,
The living and the dead.

"Now wake, now wake, thou butcher man!
What makes your cheeks so pale?
Take hold! take hold! thou dost not fear
To clasp a spectre's tail?"

Untwisted every winding coil;
The shuddering wretch took hold,
Till like an icicle it seemed,
So tapering and so cold.

"Thou com'st with me, thou butcher man!"
He strives to loose his grasp,
But, faster than the clinging vine,
Those twining spirals clasp.

And open, open, swung the door,
And fleeter than the wind,
The shadowy spectre swept before,
The butcher trailed behind.

Fast fled the darkness of the night,
And morn rose faint and dim;
They called full loud, they knocked full long
They did not waken him.

Straight, straight towards that oaken beam,
A trampled pathway ran;
A ghastly shape was swinging there--
It was the butcher man.

O. W. Holmes

[Page 176--Piggy Land]

Little Dame Crump

Little Dame Crump,
With her l