a serious ballad.

but a bold pheasantry, their country’s pride

when once destroyed can never be supplied.

goldsmith.

bill blossom was a nice young man,

and drove the bury coach;

but bad companions were his bane,

and egg’d him on to poach.

they taught him how to net the birds,

and how to noose the hare;

and with a wiry terrier,

he often set a snare.

each “shiny night” the moon was bright,

to park, preserve, and wood

he went, and kept the game alive,

by killing all he could.

land-owners, who had rabbits, swore

that he had this demerit —

give him an inch of warren, he

would take a yard of ferret.

at partridges he was not nice;

and many, large and small,

without hall’s powder, without lead,

were sent to leaden hall.

he did not fear to take a deer

from forest, park, or lawn;

and without courting lord or duke,

used frequently to fawn.

folks who had hares discovered snares —

his course they could not stop:

no barber he, and yet he made

their hares a perfect crop.

to pheasant he was such a foe,

he tried the keepers’ nerves;

they swore he never seem’d to have

jam satis of preserves.

the shooter went to beat, and found

no sporting worth a pin,

unless he tried the covers made

of silver, plate, or tin.

in kent the game was little worth,

in surrey not a button;

the speaker said he often tried

the manors about button.

no county from his tricks was safe;

in each he tried his lucks,

and when the keepers were in beds,

he often was at bucks.

and when he went to bucks, alas!

they always came to herts;

and even oxon used to wish

that he had his deserts.

but going to his usual hants,

old cheshire laid his plots:

he got entrapp’d by legal berks,

and lost his life in notts.