[Sidenote: Now the Dog Days have begun, ten times hotter is the Sun. If,
in walking Regent Street, crowds of puppies you should meet,
do not kick the harm- less things, but recollect what
Shakspeare sings, recollect the ancient say, every dog shall
have his day.]
I scorn the rules of Fashion's fools, their scoffings and their sneers,
To the ocean spray I haste away from people and from piers.
I love to ride in the flowing tide 'mid the summer's gentle gales,
And to seem the monarch of the sea, or at least the Prince of Whales.
Like porpoise brave, in the briny wave, I flounder and I flirt,
And now I stand upon the land—Oh, murder! where's my shirt?
Yes, there it goes, and all my clothes—stay, sacrilegious wretches!
Take coat and hat, and black cravat, but give me back my breeches!
This is the spite of Mistress White—the foulest in the Nation—
Because I scouted her machine; it is her machination.
But, hark! I hear, there's some one near—in vain I hope to hide;
They'll say I'm not a tidy man, for going in the tide.
Oh! dire disgrace! I'll screen my face behind this fisher's basket,
And those who do not know my name, I hope wont stop to ask it!