[Sidenote: Through air as
dark as
dirty muslin,
[Illustration]
Duke of Guys.
The city people
go
a-guzzlin.]
France is a powder magazine,
A sort of foreign infernal machine—
A barrel of brimstone, of odour ambrosian,
Apparently brewed for a "triple X"-plosion!
She's been fermenting her beer for years!
She laughs in her frenzy, or revels in _Thiers_—
For war she'll riot, at peace she'll scoff,
And she _wont_ go _on_ till she _does_ go _off_!
She's quite in a "fifth of November" state,
To blow up some one at any rate;
If Guy Fawkes were over there—my eyes!
She'd make him a Peer—as the Duke of Guys!
She'd have her Monarch in air be blown;
Not one of the throne, but the overthrown!
And when he was shivered to atoms, she'd wait
To pick up his bits to bury in state!
She'd shoot at him till he was quite unnerved,
And then address him on being _preserved_.
But a King—to say it I do not stickle—
In such a _preserve_ must be always in _pickle_!
I wouldn't be Louis-Philippe, I say,
If I had a thousand Louis a-day.
To be King in a land of such whimsical slaugh
'S like being a Monarch inside of a mortar!