PYRAMUS AND THISBE by JOHN GODFREY SAXE

THIS tragical tale, which, they say, is a true one,
Is old, but the manner is wholly a new one.
One Ovid, a writer of some reputation,
Has told it before in a tedious narration;
In a style, to be sure, of remarkable fullness,
But which nobody reads on account of its dullness.

Young Peter Pyramus, I call him Peter,
Not for the sake of the rhyme or metre,
But merely to make the name completer, --
For Peter lived in the olden times,
And in one of the worst of Pagan climes
That flourish now in classical fame,
Long before
Either noble or boor
Had such a thing as a Christian name, --
Young Peter then was a nice young beau
As any young lady would wish to know;
In years, I ween,
He was rather green,
That is to say, he was just eighteen, --
A trifle too short, and a shaving too lean,
But "a nice young man" as ever was seen,
And fit to dance with a May-day queen!

Now Peter loved a beautiful girl
As ever ensnared the heart of an earl
In the magical trap of an auburn curl, --
A little Miss Thisbe who lived next door
(They slept in fact on the very same floor,
With a wall between them, and nothing more,
Those double dwellings were common of yore),
And they loved each other, the legends say,
In that very beautiful, bountiful way
That every young maid,
And every young blade,
Are wont to do before they grow staid
And learn to love by the laws of trade.
But alack-a-day for the girl and boy,
A little impediment checked their joy,
And gave them, awhile, the deepest annoy.
For some good reason, which history cloaks,
The match did n't happen to please the old folks!

So Thisbe's father and Peter's mother
Began the young couple to worry and bother,
And tried their innocent passions to smother
By keeping the lovers from seeing each other!
But whoever heard
Of a marriage deterred,
Or even deferred,
By any contrivance so very absurd
As scolding the boy, and caging his bird?

Now Peter, who was n't discouraged at all
By obstacles such as the timid appall,
Contrived to discover a hole in the wall,
Which was n't so thick
But removing a brick
Made a passage, -- though rather provokingly small.
Through this little chink the lover could greet her,
And secrecy made their courting the sweeter,
While Peter kissed Thisbe and Thisbe kissed Peter, --
For kisses, like folks with diminutive souls,
Will manage to creep through the smallest of holes!
'T was here that the lovers, intent upon love,
Laid a nice little plot
To meet at a spot
Near a mulberry-tree in a neighboring grove;
For the plan was all laid
By the youth and the maid
(Whose hearts, it would seem, were uncommonly bold ones),
To run off and get married in spite of the old ones.

In the shadows of evening, as still as a mouse,
The beautiful maiden slipt out of the house,
The mulberry-tree impatient to find,
While Peter, the vigilant matrons to blind,
Strolled leisurely out some minutes behind.
While waiting alone by the trysting tree,
A terrible lion
As e'er you set eye on
Came roaring along quite horrid to see,
And caused the young maiden in terror to flee
(A lion's a creature whose regular trade is
Blood, -- and "a terrible thing among ladies"),
And losing her veil as she ran from the wood,
The monster bedabbled it over with blood.

Now Peter arriving, and seeing the veil
All covered o'er
And reeking with gore,
Turned all of a sudden exceedingly pale,
And sat himself down to weep and to wail, --
For, soon as he saw the garment, poor Peter
Made up in his mind, in very short metre,
That Thisbe was dead, and the lion had eat her!
So breathing a prayer,
He determined to share
The fate of his darling, "the loved and the lost,"
And fell on his dagger, and gave up the ghost!
Now Thisbe returning, and viewing her beau,
Lying dead by the veil (which she happened to know),
She guessed, in a moment the cause of his erring,
And seizing the knife
Which had taken his life,
In less than a jiffy was dead as a herring!

MORAL.

Young gentlemen! pray recollect, if you please,
Not to make assignations near mulberry-trees;
Should your mistress be missing, it shows a weak head
To be stabbing yourself till you know she is dead.

Young ladies! you should n't go strolling about
When your anxious mammas don't know you are out,
And remember that accidents often befall
From kissing young fellows through holes in the wall.

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