"Six shillings a pair--five--four--three-and-six. To prevent all mistakes, that low price I will fix; Now what will that make? fifty chickens, I said,-- Fifty times three-and-sixpence--_I'll ask Brother Ned_.
"O, but stop,--three-and-sixpence a _pair_ I must sell 'em; Well, a pair is a couple,--now then let us tell 'em; A couple in fifty will go (my poor brain!) Why, just a score times and five pair will remain.
"Twenty-five pair of fowls--now how tiresome it is That I can't reckon up so much money as this! Well, there's no use in trying, so let's give a guess,-- I'll say twenty pounds, _and it can't be no less_.
"Twenty pounds, I am certain, will buy me a cow, Thirty geese and two turkeys,--eight pigs and a sow; Now if these turn out well, at the end of a year, I shall fill both my pockets with guineas, 't is clear."
Forgetting her burden, when this she had said, The maid superciliously tossed up her head; When, alas for her prospects! her milk-pail descended, And so all her schemes for the future were ended.
This moral, I think, may be safely attached,-- "Reckon not on your chickens before they are hatched."
Let Taylor preach, upon a morning breezy, How well to rise while nights and larks are flying,-- For my part, getting up seems not so easy By half as _lying_.
What if the lark does carol in the sky, Soaring beyond the sight to find him out,-- Wherefore am I to rise at such a fly? I'm not a trout.
Talk not to me of bees and such-like hums, The smell of sweet herbs at the morning prime,-- Only lie long enough, and bed becomes A bed of _time_.
To me Dan Phoebus and his car are naught, His steeds that paw impatiently about,-- Let them enjoy, say I, as horses ought, The first turn-out!
Right beautiful the dewy meads appear Besprinkled by the rosy-fingered girl; What then,--if I prefer my pillow-beer To early pearl?
My stomach is not ruled by other men's, And, grumbling for a reason, quaintly begs Wherefore should master rise before the hens Have laid their eggs?
Why from a comfortable pillow start To see faint flushes in the east awaken? A fig, say I, for any streaky part, Excepting bacon.
An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn, Who used to haste the dewy grass among, "To meet the sun upon the upland lawn,"-- Well,--he died young.