Hunting Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Good day,” said Farmer Oldstyle, taking Newstyle by the arm;
“I be cum to look aboit me, wilt 'ee show me o'er thy farm?”
Young Newstyle took his wideawake, and lighted a cigar,
And said, “Won't I astonish you, old-fashioned as you are!

II

“No doubt you have an aneroid? ere starting, you shall see
How truly mine prognosticates what weather there will be.”
“I aint got no such gimcrack, but I knows there'll be a slush
When I sees th' oud ram tak' shelter wi' his tail agen a bush.”

III

“Allow me, first, to show you the analysis I keep,
And the compounds to explain of this experimental heap,

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Where hydrogen, and nitrogen, and oxygen abound,
To hasten germination and to fertilize the ground.”

IV

“A pratty soight o' larning you have pil'd up of a ruck;
The only name it went by in my feyther's time was muck;
I knows not how that tool you calls a nollysis may work;
I turns it, when it's rotten, pretty handy wi' a fork.”

V

“A famous pen of Cotswolds! Pass your hand along the back—
Fleeces fit for stuffing the Lord Chancellor's woolsack!
For premiums e'en Inquisitor would own these wethers are fit;
If you want to purchase good 'uns you must go to Mr. Garfit.

VI

“Two bulls first-rate, of different breeds—the judges all protest
Both are so super-excellent, they know not which is best;

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Fair, could he see this Ayrshire, would with jealousy be ril'd,
That hairy one's a Welshman, and was bred by Mr. Wild.”

VII

“Well, well, that little hairy bull he shanna be so bad;
But what be yonder beast I hear a bellowing like mad,
A snortin fire and smoke out?—be it some big Roosian gun?
Or be it twenty bullocks squz together into one?”

VIII

“My steam Factotum that, sir, doing all I have to do—
My ploughman, and my reaper, and my jolly thrasher, too;
Steam's yet but in its infancy, no mortal man alive
Can tell to what perfection modern farming will arrive.”

IX

“Steam, as yet, is but an infant”—He had scarcely said the word
When through the tottering farmstead was a loud explosion heard;

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The engine dealing death around, destruction and dismay;
Though steam be but an infant, this indeed was no child's play.

X

The women scream'd like blazes as the blazing hayrick burn'd,
The sucking pigs were in a crack all into crackling turn'd;
Grill'd chickens clog the hen-coop, roasted ducklings choke the gutter,
And turkeys round the poultry-yard on devil'd pinions flutter.

XI

Two feet deep in buttermilk the stoker's two feet lie,
The cook, before she bakes it, finds a finger in the pie;
The labourers for their lost legs were looking round the farm,
They could not lend a hand because they had not got an arm.

XII

Oldstyle, all soot from head to foot, look'd like a big black sheep;
Newstyle was thrown upon his own experimental heap:

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“That weather-glass,” said Oldstyle, “canna be in proper fettle,
Or it might as well a tou'd us there was thunder in the kettle.”

XIII

“Steam is so expansive.” “Ay,” said Oldstyle, “so I see;
So expensive, as you call it, that it wunna do for me;
According to my notion, that's a beast that canna pay,
Who champs up for his morning feed a hundred ton o' hay.”

XIV

Then to himself, said Oldstyle, as he homewards quickly went,
“I'll tak' no farm where th' doctor's bill be heavier than the rent;
I've never in hot water been; steam shanna speed my plough,
I would liefer thrash my oats out by the sweat of my own brow.

XV

“I neether want to scald my pigs, nor toast my cheese, not I,
Afore the butcher sticks 'em, or the factor comes to buy;

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They shanna catch me here again to risk my limbs and loif;
I've nought at whoam to blow me up, except it be my woif.”