No More Learning

Then up she springs as if on wings;
She thinks no more of deadly sin;
If Betty fifty ponds should see,
The last of all her thoughts would be 310
To drown herself therein.

O Reader! now that I might tell
What Johnny and his Horse are doing!
What they've been doing all this time,
Oh could I put it into rhyme, 315
A most delightful tale pursuing!

Perhaps, and no unlikely thought!
He with his Pony now doth roam
The cliffs and peaks so high that are,
To lay his hands upon a star, 320
And in his pocket bring it home.

Perhaps he's turned himself about,
His face unto his horse's tail,
And, still and mute, in wonder lost,
All silent as a horseman-ghost, 325
He travels slowly down the vale. [24]

And now, perhaps, is hunting [25] sheep,
A fierce and dreadful hunter he;
Yon valley, now so trim [26] and green,
In five months' time, should he be seen, 330
A desert wilderness will be!

Perhaps, with head and heels on fire,
And like the very soul of evil,
He's galloping away, away,
And so will gallop [27] on for aye, 335
The bane of all that dread the devil!

I to the Muses have been bound
These fourteen years, by strong indentures: [A]
O gentle Muses! let me tell
But half of what to him befel; 340
He surely met [28] with strange adventures.

O gentle Muses! is this kind?
Why will ye thus my suit repel?
Why of your further aid bereave me?
And can ye thus unfriended [29] leave me; 345
Ye Muses! whom I love so well?

Who's yon, that, near the waterfall,
Which thunders down with headlong force
Beneath the moon, yet shining fair,
As careless as if nothing were, 350
Sits upright on a feeding horse?

Unto his horse--there feeding [30] free,
He seems, I think, the rein to give;
Of moon or stars he takes no heed;
Of such we in romances read: 355
--'Tis Johnny! Johnny! as I live.

And that's the very Pony, too!
Where is she, where is Betty Foy?
She hardly can sustain her fears;
The roaring waterfall she hears, 360
And cannot find her Idiot Boy.

Your Pony's worth his weight in gold:
Then calm your terrors, Betty Foy!
She's coming from among the trees,
And now all full in view she sees 365
Him whom she loves, her Idiot Boy.

And Betty sees the Pony too:
Why stand you thus, good Betty Foy?
It is no goblin, 'tis no ghost,
'Tis he whom you so long have lost, 370
He whom you love, your Idiot Boy.

She looks again--her arms are up--
She screams--she cannot move for joy;
She darts, as with a torrent's force,
She almost has o'erturned the Horse, 375
And fast she holds her Idiot Boy.

And Johnny burrs, and laughs aloud;
Whether in cunning or in joy
I cannot tell; but while he laughs,
Betty a drunken pleasure quaffs 380
To hear again her Idiot Boy.

And now she's at the Pony's tail,
And now is [31] at the Pony's head,--
On that side now, and now on this;
And, almost stifled with her bliss, 385
A few sad tears does Betty shed.