I have seen some queer things,
Both in people and kings,
Since first I began as a dreamer;
But I ne'er thought to hear
Any thing half so queer
As a Cardinal's trip in a steamer.
I once saw a Rabbi,
The prince of the shabby,
In a gale of wind playing the screamer,
Till we plumped him o'erboard,
Towed along by a cord,
For a bath at the tail of the steamer.
'Tis true, the Chinese
Looked as black as their teas,
When battered by brave Sir John Bremer:
But John Chinaman's slaughter
Was all milk and water,
To the havoc on board of the steamer.
On a coil of the cable,
Right under the table,
With the glass at 500 of Reaumur,
Busy "making his soul,"
As he felt every roll,
Lay his Highness, on board of the steamer.
Around him ten chaplains,
And none of them saplings,
Lay pale as a quarantine streamer.
With six dozen of monks,
All as helpless as trunks,
All rolling about in the steamer.
As she steered down the Tiber,
It shook every fibre
Of the conclave from forehead to _femur_;
But, 'twas when in her glee,
She got sight of the sea,
That she showed them the tricks of the steamer.
At Civita Vecchia,
Oh, mie orecchie!
What howls called the Saints to redeem her.
But she darted along
Like a stone from a thong,
In the style of a true British steamer.
She now ruled the roast,
As she sprang from the coast,
Through such surges no buckets could teem her:
The Lipari Isles
Got but very few smiles
From the brethren on board of the steamer.
"As sure as we're born,
We'll ne'er see Leghorn."
"Peccavi!" cried out every schemer:
The whole of the friars.
In that court were "criers,"
While thundered the wheels of the steamer.
I'd not stand in their shoes,
As they passed Syracuse,
Where thy frigate lay moored, Captain Seymour:
At the top of their throats
Yelling out for thy boats,
While teeth to the wind went the steamer.
As they swept by Messina--
Thy birth-place, Christina!--
Old Etna was scarce such a beamer:
In vain they cried--"Stop!"
With a blaze at her top,
Like a pillar of flame rushed the steamer.
She bounced by Charybdis,
With limestone which ribb'd is;
A touch from a pebble might seam her;
Made a curtsey to Scylla,
As the Turks say, "Bismillah,"
'Twas a very close shave for the steamer.
But the surges grew brown,
And the night hurried down,
And they saw in each flash a death-gleamer;
While the peals from the clouds,
And the wind in the shrouds,
Made them all very sick of the steamer.
When they made Capri's lights
It redoubled their frights,
And the friars all bellowed--"Tenemur!"
One and all made confessions,
(E'en popes have transgressions,)
There was some heavy work in the steamer.
But they soon smelt the apples
And fish-shops of Naples,
And the cargo began to esteem her--
"No witch in a sieve,
They could ever believe,
Had sailed half so fast as the steamer."
Could my pen give a sketch
Of each wo-begone wretch,
Like Gilray, H. B., or old Damer,
You should have the whole troop
That lay stretched on the poop,
As up by the mole dashed the steamer.
Were I Guizot, or Florian,
Or "Oxford Historian,"
Or "Orator" like Dr Cremer,
In my grand paragraphs,
You should have all the laughs
Of the mob as they rushed from the steamer!