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And to the doctor’s door she hies;

       ’Tis silence all on every side;

       The town so long, the town so wide,

       Is silent as the skies.

      And now she’s at the doctor’s door,

       She lifts the knocker, rap, rap, rap,

       The doctor at the casement shews,

       His glimmering eyes that peep and doze;

       And one hand rubs his old nightcap.

      ”Oh Doctor! Doctor! where’s my Johnny?”

       ”I’m here, what is’t you want with me?”

       ”Oh Sir! you know I’m Betty Foy,

       And I have lost my poor dear boy,

       You know him — him you often see;”

      ”He’s not so wise as some folks be,”

       ”The devil take his wisdom!” said

       The Doctor, looking somewhat grim,

       ”What, woman! should I know of him?”

       And, grumbling, he went back to bed.

      ”O woe is me! O woe is me!

       Here will I die; here will I die;

       I thought to find my Johnny here,

       But he is neither far nor near,

       Oh! what a wretched mother I!”

      She stops, she stands, she looks about,

       Which way to turn she cannot tell.

       Poor Betty! it would ease her pain

       If she had heart to knock again;

       — The clock strikes three — a dismal knell!

      Then up along the town she hies,

       No wonder if her senses fail,

       This piteous news so much it shock’d her,

       She quite forgot to send the Doctor,

       To comfort poor old Susan Gale.

      And now she’s high upon the down,

       And she can see a mile of road,

       ”Oh cruel! I’m almost threescore;

       Such night as this was ne’er before,

       There’s not a single soul abroad.”

      She listens, but she cannot hear

       The foot of horse, the voice of man;

       The streams with softest sound are flowing,

       The grass you almost hear it growing,

       You hear it now if e’er you can.

      The owlets through the long blue night

       Are shouting to each other still:

       Fond lovers, yet not quite hob nob,

       They lengthen out the tremulous sob,

       That echoes far from hill to hill.

      Poor Betty now has lost all hope,

       Her thoughts are bent on deadly sin;

       A green-grown pond she just has pass’d,

       And from the brink she hurries fast,

       Lest she should drown herself therein.

      And now she sits her down and weeps;

       Such tears she never shed before;

       ”Oh dear, dear pony! my sweet joy!

       Oh carry back my idiot boy!

       And we will ne’er o’erload thee more.”

      A thought it come into her head;

       ”The pony he is mild and good,

       And we have always used him well;

       Perhaps he’s gone along the dell,

       And carried Johnny to the wood.”

      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,

       To drown herself therein.

      Oh 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,

       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,

       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 like a silent horseman ghost,

       He travels on along the vale.

      And now, perhaps, he’s hunting sheep,

       A fierce and dreadful hunter he!

       Yon valley, that’s so trim and green,

       In five months’ time, should he be seen,

       A desart wilderness will be.

      Perhaps, with head and heels on fire,

       And like the very soul of evil,

       He’s galloping away, away,

       And so he’ll gallop on for aye,

       The bane of all that dread the devil.

      I to the muses have been bound

       These fourteen years, by strong indentures:

       Oh gentle muses! let me tell

       But half of what to him befel,

       For sure he met with strange adventures.

      Oh gentle muses! is this kind

       Why will ye thus my suit repel?

       Why of your further aid bereave me?

       And can ye thus unfriended leave me?

       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,

       Sits upright on a feeding horse?

      Unto his horse, that’s feeding free,

       He seems, I think, the rein to give;

       Of moon or stars he takes no heed;

       Of such we in romances read,

       — 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,

       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

       Him whom she loves, her idiot boy.

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