PART I.

On either side of Market-street Small stalls of vegetables meet Domestic eyes; and voices sweet And voices hoarse their hearing greet With cries of “Buy my fine shalots!” And up and down the million goes; Gazing where, in varied rows, Green stuff lies, and each nose knows The odour of shalots.

Widows cheapen, urchins chatter, Little vagrants make much clatter; Vulgar boys cry, “_Who’s your hatter?_” And this time, the night of Satur- Day’s the joy of all the sots. Bright blue eyes, lips like the cherry, Rosy cheeks, that ringlets bury, Had an Irish girl, from Derry, A girl who sold shalots!

To the market, peas and beans Heavy lumbering machines Bring thrice a week, also greens; And ’tis prime fun to watch the scenes At the biddings for the lots. But who hath seen _her_ buy her stock Of onions, or white-headed broc- Oli, before four of the clock, That girl who sells shalots?

Only peelers, walking early (One there is a great, big, burly Fellow, who is always surly, And wouldn’t even let a cur lie Down in shelter’d corner spots); Or, by the dawn, some loose young city Clerk, home reeling, hears the ditty She oft sings--says “_’Tis that pretty Girl who sells shalots!_”

THE ONION GIRL