To Paddington, and Shoreditch, Euston-square,
And all the other stations――for no waste
Of time made Pam, nor did he even spare
His co-mates; for the ripen’d wheat and tare
Must grow and bloom together here, until
The reck’ning comes, and men’s hearts are laid bare.
And well did Ministers their own plots till,
And sway the supple country at their lordly will!
Within a niche of Romulus’s halls
Sat Manchester’s sick member. He did hear
The news by telegraph, and loud he calls
For ink and paper; and he dropt a tear
(Of course well’d up by sentiment, not fear)
Upon the sheet which stated he would stand
Once more for that great town he loved so dear.
Ungrateful Manchester, I say――for it
Saw its sick member _stand_, and would not bid him _sit_![109]
And Thames’ waves murmur as the members leave,
And sigh beneath its bridges as they pass,
Grieving (if aught so muddy e’er can grieve)
Over the unreturning brave――alas!
So shortly to be stript of all their brass
As well as tin, and, friendless, left to go
O’er the wide, gloomy world――consigned, _en masse_,
To vile obscurity by heartless foe,
Shorn of their proud “M.P.” by base elector’s “No!”
Last session found them full of lusty strife,
Last month in House of Commons blythe and gay――
The guns of Canton signall’d forth the strife
And called ’em all to arms. And “Gov’nor Yeh!”
The war-cry was which led them on that day;
The husting’s mob closed round them――forth they went
Their hopes all wither’d, crush’d, in dust low lay――
To mourn their factious folly and repent
Were Gibson, Cobden, Bright, by angry England sent.
ANONYMOUS.
――――
BILLIARDS AT OXFORD.
There was a clash of billiard balls by night,
And University had gathered then
Her members for a handicap, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair tables and dark men;
A hundred went up rapidly; and when
The clock struck nine a wild tumultuous yell
Bade them play on until the hour of ten
Brought into sound the evening chapel bell;
But hush! hark! a deep voice strikes like a rising knell.
Did ye not hear it? No; ’twas but a moke,
Or a cad yelling from the distant street;
On with the game! don’t interrupt the stroke;
No one should budge when two such players meet
To give us all an exhibition treat――
But hark! that fatal sound breaks in once more,
Alas! no pen its terrors could repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Fly! fly! it is-it is――the Proctor at the door!
Within a windowed niche of those low walls
Sate Univ.’s famous dandy; he did hear
That sound the first amidst the billiard balls,
And caught its tones with sad, prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deemed it near,
His heart more truly knew that sound too well
Which cost his father several pounds a year,
And roused the instinct flight alone could quell
He rushed into the street, and foremost victim fell.
A. HASKETT SMITH, _Univ. Coll: Oxford_.
――――
THE FIRST NIGHT OF “OTHELLO.”
I.
Stop: for your tread is on a Poet’s dust!
’Tis Shakespeare, mangled, feels the dreadful blow!
The bubble of that overrated fame has _bust_!
No critics sing the praises of the slow:――
None; presumptuous player! why don’t you go
Back to the “Bells” or “Diddler”? Can’t you see
The Moor is not your form? ask Mrs. Crowe,
And all true friends; they will agree
That in this _role_ you’re more than ever up a tree.
II.
There was a sound of smother’d glee that night,
And at the Lyceum was gathered then
A crowd expecting something rich and bright
The gas shone o’er stalls filled with first-night men;
The pitites coughed impatiently, and when
Music beneath the stage was heard, the swells
Began to fidget in their seats again,
And many wished the play had been the “Bells,”
For _this_, ’twas feared, would prove the most grotesque of sells.
* * * * *
IV.
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
To leave the place, and murmurs of distress,
And some, who should have gone two hours ago,
Had only stayed because the dreadful mess
Must be reported in the daily press;
And these regretfully, with choking sighs,
Sat the performance through, for who could guess
If ever more, before the critics’ eyes,
The curtain on such cruel sacrilege would rise?
_The Figaro_, February 26, 1876.
These lines refer to the first appearance of Mr. Henry Irving in the
Character of “Othello.” The success he met with then, induced him to
revive it some time afterward, and proves how reliable these verses
were as a criticism. But at that time _The Figaro_ persistently and
indiscriminately ran down all Mr. Irving’s impersonations.
――――
LONDON’S INFERNO.
There is a sound of revelry by night,
For England’s capital has gathered then
Her lowest and her foulest and too bright
The gas shines o’er frail women and fast men!
A thousand tongues wag noisily, and when
The music-halls the shameless concourse swells,
And drunken wretches reel from many a den,
The scene grows yet more like an earthly hell!――
But hush! Big Ben booms midnight, like some solemn knell!
Do they not hear it sounding on the wind,
These reckless haunters of the crowded street?
Nay, on they course, their laughter unconfined,
Prepared in all their brazen shame to greet
The ribald roysterers they haply meet!
But hark! that bell of doom breaks in once more,
And some lone hearts its echoes now repeat;
But louder, shriller, ghastlier than before,
Rises that hideous midnight Market’s odious roar!
Ah! now there’s eager hurrying to and fro,
And frightful oaths and tears of deep distress
And cheeks are drabbled which an hour ago
Were brave with artificial loveliness.
And there are sudden quarrels as the press
Of desperate women swirls and surges by,
With laughter forced and words of bitterness,
Which overwhelms the outcasts deep-drawn sigh,
As the pale moon breaks through the sombre-clouded sky.
And this in London! in the very street
Which speaks the grandeur of the wealthy west!
’Tis here debauchery and riot meet;
’Tis here each night, when purity’s at rest,
There rages rampantly that moral pest
That saps our city’s health and blasts her name,
And steals the reputation she posses’t,
Leaving her rifled of her once fair fame,
A bye-word for the nations, and all Europe’s shame.
_Truth, Christmas Number_, 1884.
――――
A parody entitled _Childe Snobson’s Pilgrimage_, in several parts,
appeared in volume III. of _Punch_ 1842; and again, in 1883, another
long parody of _Childe Harold_ ran through several numbers of the same
periodical. This was called _Childe Chappie’s Pilgrimage_, and, when
complete, was issued in book form by Bradbury Agnew & Co., with the
Author’s name, E. J. Milliken, on the title page, and some
illustrations by E. J. Wheeler.
This work is at once a parody of Childe Harold, and a satire on the
typical young “Masher” of the period, who, having exhausted all modern
forms of dissipation, finally “comes an awful cropper” in the slang of
his tribe.
“Childe Chappie” bids farewell to the haunts of his boyhood in the
following verses, sung to the accompaniment of a banjo.
I.
Adieu! adieu! Home life’s a bore
When one is twenty-two;
Nights were, not given to snooze and snore,
Days, hours are all too few.
When the sun sets o’er land and sea,
Life’s beacon blazes high.
Farewell, domestic fiddle-de-dee!
My Early Home――good-bye!
II.
A few short hours, and Sol will rise
To give grey morning birth;
We shall be prone with sleep-crowned eyes,
Dreaming of night’s mad mirth,
Whilst yonder, round my father’s hall,
My sisters, dear, but dull,
Will toss the early tennis-ball,
Or pull the morning scull.
III.
Let love be hot, let wine run high,
I fear not love or wine.
From tame delights of home I fly,
Life’s fiery press be mine!
I mean to do the whole mad round,
Turf, Stage, Sport, Fun, light Love;
For in these things do joys abound
Home’s doldrums far above.
IV.
My sire will “row” me vigorously,
My Mother sore complain,
But, o’er life’s wildest waves I’ll fly
E’er I touch shore again,
Let sermons scare the goody good
From Stage, or Bar, or Ring;
But I, who am of gayer mood,
Intend to have my fling.
V.
With ye, my bonny boys, I’ll go
The fastest pace that’s set;
With hopes to lead the field, you know,
And cut all record yet,
Welcome, the riskiest game that’s on!
Brim, brim the beaker high!
Life’s fizz till the last bubble’s gone!
My early Home-good-bye!
_Canto the First._
――――
CANTO THE SEVENTH.
I stood in London, on the bridge which lies
Tall tower and swelling dome on either hand.
From out the stream Saint Stephen’s spires arise,
St. Paul’s huge summit dominates the land;
Between them runs the noisy, wheel-worn Strand,
Hushed now awhile, for early morning smiles
O’er the swift river, and the grey, yet grand
Wide-winged old city of Titanic piles,
Huge capital of our little, lordliest of all isles.
She looks a sprawling Mammoth from the river
Risen, with unspanned bulk and ungauged powers,
O’er league on league the silver morn-mists quiver
Upon her mighty maze of roofs and towers.
And what brings she, what are her dearest dowers
To wealth-spoilt golden youth? The Comus feast,
The Rahab lap piled high with gems and flowers,
The Circe draught proffered by Pleasure’s priest,
Which lures the eager lip, and leaves the man――a beast,
But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song,
Who ’midst this city lived the life called “fast”?
Doth he upon his pillow tarry long?
He comes no more――those flutterings were his last;
The butterfly is stricken, netted, cast,
Wing-bruised, bloom-robbed aside, a thing that was;
To-day a phantasy, not to be classed
With “form” maintainers――these must let him pass,
Vanish in Limbo’s gloom, sink in Despair’s morass.
Scattered his substance, linked life, honour, all
With――what? A thing that silence fain must shroud,
“Gone to the bad, poor beggar! What a fall!”
“Under the very dingiest kind of cloud.”
“Thought he was ’cuter, or at least more proud.”
“Yes――regular church and ring affair, a craze
Most melancholy,――can’t be squared, _too_ loud!”
So cackle they, in vague slang-garnished phrase,
The “other Johnnies,”――chums of his exuberant days.
What profits prying into the abyss
Where plunge the witless dupes of flaunting shame,
Of vulgar Mélusines who writhe and hiss,
Too late detected? Chappie’s lost to fame.
Who’ll wipe the dirt from the dishonoured name
Society no more hears? For never more
Shall he who’s siren-mated be the same,
Unless high genius hush the social roar――
Genius whose spell to miss were “quite too great a bore.”
But I must end. My Pilgrim’s shrine is won,
And he and I must part――so let it be.
His task in life was the pursuit of “Fun;”
In Babylon there are thousands such as he;
Each year breaks hundreds, and the wrecks few see.
That venturous Muse were voted all too bold
Who golden youth in their gregarious glee
Should paint, or the veracious tale unfold
Of dull esurient lives in gilded styes outrolled.
* * * * *
Roll on, thou shallow stream of Pleasure!――roll!
Ten thousand skiffs float over thee in vain,
Prows prone to rapids, helms beyond control;
Awhile they dance upon thy watery plain,
Then fleet to wreck, and nothing doth remain
Save a sad memory of the bitter groan
When one more struggler, slackening the fierce strain,
Sinks wave-choked, weed-encumbered, stark, alone,
Gone to the dogs, unstayed, unfriended, and unknown.
――――
TO INEZ.
Nay, smile not at my garments now;
Alas! _I_ cannot smile again:
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
Should’st dress, and haply dress so plain.
And dost thou ask, why should I be
The jest of every foe and friend?
And wilt thou vainly seek to see
A garb, even thou must fail to mend?
It is not love, it is not hate,
Nor low Ambitions’ honors lost
That bids me loathe my present state,
And fly from all I loved the most.
It is the contrast which will spring
From all I meet, or hear, or see,
To me no garments tailors bring,――
Their shops have scarce a charm for me.
It is a something all who rub
Would know the owner long had wore;
That may not look beyond the tub,
And cannot hope for help before.
What fellow from himself can flee?
To zones, though more and more remote,
Still, still pursues, where’er I be,
The blight of life,――the ragged Coat.
Yet others wrapt in broadcloth seem,
And taste of all that I forsake!
O, may they still of transport dream,
And ne’er, at least like me, awake!
Through many a clime ’tis mine to go,
With many a retrospection curst,
And all my solace is to know,
Whate’er I wear, I’ve worn the worst.
What is the worst? Nay, do not ask,――
In pity from the search forbear:
Smile on,――nor venture to unclasp
My vest, and view the shirt that’s there.
From _Poems and Parodies_. By Phœbe Carey. (Ticknor, Reed, and
Fields, Boston, United States, 1854.)
――――:o:――――
CHILDE HAROLD.
_Canto IV._
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O’er the far times, when many a subject land
Look’d to the wingèd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sat in state, throned on her hundred isles!
She looks a sea Cybele fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Pour’d in her lap all gems in sparkling showers,
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deem’d their dignity increased.
In Venice Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone――but Beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade――but nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.
BYRON.
――――
VENICE UNPRESERVED.
“Steamers have been started on the Grand Canal at Venice.”
――_Globe._
I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each hand.
I saw from out the wave black funnels rise
Whence clouds of densest smoke I saw expand,
And common steamboats, at a penny a mile,
O’er the canal――saw many a person land
Upon the piers. O Anguish! it does rile
The Bard to see all this――and what a smell of ile!
_Punch_, November 12, 1881.
――――
PRACTICAL VENICE.
(_By a Commercial Childe Harold._)
I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs;
A factory, a mill on either hand,
I saw from out the wave tall chimneys rise,
And wharves and busy steam-cranes edge the strand,
And palaces to warehouses expand:
A murky air, where sunshine never smiles,
As black as Bradford. This was once the land
Where poets sang its countless marble piles,
And RUSKIN wrote and revelled in its sunny isles!
In Venice RUSKIN’S echoes are no more,
And steam has stopped the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crammed with goods galore,
And barcarolles no longer meet the ear;
Those days are past――but Enterprise is here.
Shares fall, Stocks fade, but Commerce doth not die
But reckons dodges more than Doges dear,
And gain above artistic sanctity;
Accounting best on earth, the Trade of Italy.
_Punch_, December 9, 1882.
――――:o:――――
ON SEEING AN INTOXICATED POLICEMAN.
Roll on thou drunk and dark blue peeler――roll!
Thy bâton now thou wieldest quite in vain;
Thou’rt conquered by blue ruin――self controul
Hath ceased with thee; the gin and watery bane
Doth mar thy course, nor dost thou now retain
One sign of human reason save alone,
When for a moment with thy might and main
Thou cling’st unto some lamp-post with a groan,
Without a hat, and luckily, unseen, unknown.
His steps shake on the path――the hat he wears
Is but a sport for him――he doth arise,
And kick it from him; the vile nap it bears,
For four and ninepence, he doth all despise,
Spurning it from the pavement towards the skies,
And sends it shivering in his playful way
Into the gutter, where perchance it lies
Till, stumbling over it as well he may,
He falls beside it; there together let them lay.
_The Puppet Show_, March 25, 1848.
――――
ADDRESS TO A WINE BARREL.
(_By a Poetical Butler._)
There is pleasure in cask of wood,
There is a rapture on a stony floor,
_There_ is society where none intrude,
The vaulted roof above and nothing more!
I love not master less, but more his store,
From these our interviews in which I steal,
From all I may be, or have been before
To mingle two good brews and feel,
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot (hic) all conceal!――
From _Cribblings from the Poets_, by Hugh Cayley. (Jones and
Piggott, Cambridge, 1883.)
――――:o:――――
ARCADES AMBO.
The “Childe Harold” metre is comically reproduced and ridiculed in
“Arcades Ambo,” where Mr. C. S. Calverley thus addresses the beadles
of the Burlington Arcade:――
Why are ye wandering aye ’twixt porch and porch,
Thou and thy fellow――when the pale stars fade
At dawn, and when the glow-worm lights her torch,
O Beadle of the Burlington Arcade?
――Who asketh why the Beautiful was made?
A wan cloud drifting o’er the waste of blue,
The thistledown that floats above the glade,
The lilac blooms of April――fair to view,
And naught but fair are these; and such, I ween, are you.
Yes, ye are beautiful. The young street boys
Joy in your beauty. Are ye there to bar
Their pathway to that paradise of toys,
Ribbons, and rings? Who’ll blame ye if ye are?
Surely no shrill and clattering crowd should mar
The dim aisle’s stillness, where in noon’s mid-glow
Trip fair-haired girls to boot-shop or bazaar;
Where, at soft eve, serenely to and fro
The sweet boy-graduates walk, nor deem the pastime slow
And O! forgive me, Beadles, if I paid
Scant tribute to your worth, when first ye stood
Before me, robed in broadcloth and brocade,
And all the nameless grace of Beadle-hood!
I would not smile at ye――if smile I could,
Now as erewhile, ere I had learned to sigh;
Ah, no! I know ye beautiful and good,
And evermore will pause as I pass by,
And gaze, and gazing think, how base a thing am I.
From _Fly Leaves_, by C. S. Calverley. Bell and Sons, London, 1878.
Mr. Calverley also wrote, when quite a young man, some most amusing
Byronic stanzas (in Don Juan style), in praise of
BEER.
In those old days which poets say were golden――
(Perhaps they laid the gilding on themselves:
And, if they did, I’m all the more beholden
To those brown dwellers in my dusty shelves,
Who talk to me “in language quaint and olden”
Of gods and demigods, and fawns and elves,
Pan with his pipes, and Bacchus with his leopards,
And staid young goddesses who flirt with shepherds:)
In those old days, the Nymph called Etiquette
(Appalling thought to dwell on) was not born,
They had their May, but no Mayfair as yet,
No fashions varying as the hues of morn.
Just as they pleased they dressed, and drank, and ate,
Sang hymns to Ceres (their John Barleycorn),
And danced unchaperoned, and laughed unchecked,
And were, no doubt, extremely incorrect.
Yet do I think their theory was pleasant:
And oft, I own, my “wayward fancy roams”
Back to those times, so different from the present;
When no one smoked cigars, nor gave At-homes,
Nor smote a billiard-ball, nor winged a pheasant,
Nor “did” her hair by means of long-tailed combs,
Nor migrated to Brighton once a year,
Nor――most astonishing of all――drank Beer.
* * * * *
So to proceed. That abstinence from Malt
Has always struck me as extremely curious.
The Greek mind must have had some vital fault,
That they should stick to liquors so injurious――
(Wine, Water, tempered p’raps with Attic salt)――
And not at once invent that mild, luxurious,
And artful beverage Beer. How the digestion
Got on without it, is a startling question.
* * * * *
O Beer! O Hodgson, Guinness, Allsop, Bass!
Names that should be on every infant’s tongue!
Shall days, and months, and years, and centuries pass,
And still your merits be unrecked, unsung?
Oh! I have gazed into my foaming glass,
And wished that lyre could yet again be strung
Which once rang prophet-like through Greece, and taught her
Misguided sons that the best drink was water.
* * * * *
Coffee is good, and so no doubt is cocoa;
Tea did for Johnson and the Chinamen:
When “Dulce est desipere in loco”
Was written, real Falernian winged the pen.
When a rapt audience has encored “Fra Poco”
Or “Casta Diva,” I have heard that then
The Prima Donna, smiling herself out,
Recruits her flagging powers with bottled stout.
But what is coffee, but a noxious berry,
Born to keep used-up Londoners awake?
What is Falernian, what is Port or Sherry
But vile concoctions to make dull heads ache?
Nay, stout itself――(though good with oysters, very)――
Is not a thing your reading man should take.
He that would shine, and petrify his tutor
Should drink draught Allsop in its “native pewter.”
But hark! a sound is stealing on my ear――
A soft and silvery sound――I know it well,
Its tinkling tells me that a time is near
Precious to me――it is the Dinner Bell.
O blessed Bell! Thou bringest beef and Beer,
Thou bringest good things more than tongue may tell:
Seared is, of course, my heart――but unsubdued
Is, and shall be, my appetite for food.
I go. Untaught and feeble is my pen:
But on one statement I may safely venture:
That few of our most highly gifted men
Have more appreciation of the trencher.
I go. One pound of British beef, and then
What Mr. Swiveller called a “modest quencher;”
That home-returning, I may “soothly say,”
“Fate cannot touch me: I have dined to-day.”[110]
_Verses and Translations_, by C. S. C.――London, George Bell and
Sons.
――――:o:――――
In “_The Poetic Mirror, or The Living Bards of Britain_,” written by
James Hogg, there is a poem entitled _The Guerilla_, written in the
Spenserian stanza adopted by Lord Byron in his _Childe Harold_. As
_The Guerilla_ is a serious poem, not a parody, it would be out of
place here. It consists of 47 stanzas, and is the first poem in _The
Poetic Mirror_, of which volume a full account will be found on page
96.
A parody, entitled _The Last Canto of Childe Harold_, by Lamartine,
was published in London in 1827, but is now difficult to find.
――――:o:――――
THE GIAOUR.
He who hath bent him o’er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,
(Before Decay’s effacing fingers,
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers),
And mark’d the mild angelic air,
The rapture of repose that’s there,
The fix’d yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,
And――but for that sad shrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not now,
And but for that chill, changeless brow,
Where cold Obstruction’s apathy
Appals the gazing mourner’s heart,
As if to him it could impart
The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant’s power;
So fair, so calm, so softly seal’d,
The first, last look by death reveal’d!
Such is the aspect of this shore;
’Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair.
We start, for soul is wanting there.
Hers is the loveliness in death,
That parts not quite with parting breath;
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb,
Expression’s last receding ray,
A gilded halo hovering round decay,
The farewell beam of Feeling pass’d away!
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish’d earth!
BYRON.
――――
LINES WRITTEN ON SEEING A “CALF’S HEAD” HANGING
UP IN BENE’T STREET.
He that had gazed upon this head
Ere yet the spark of life was fled,
Before the butcher’s cursed fingers
“Had swept the lines where beauty lingers,”
Had playful seen in Nature’s pride
The offspring at its mother’s side――
Oh! who could think that tyrant man
Could e’er curtail its narrow span――
In fetters drag it helpless thence,
And slay it in its innocence!
E’en now methinks its looks implore,
Tho’ fixed in death, tho’ stain’d with gore;
“And but for that sad shrouded eye,”
That gives the rising thought the lie,
One yet might think it breath’d with life,
And gaz’d upon the threat’ning knife!
The sturdy ox falls in his prime,
The sheep is happy for a time,
This only feels man’s ceaseless hate;――
I mused――and pond’ring o’er its fate,
And on the butcher’s cruel steel,
I vow’d I’d never eat of veal!
Alas! our best resolves are vain,
Repentance leads to sin again!
That selfsame minute――callous sinner!
I hastened to my friend and dinner;
And, as a mistress at her lover,
Impatient eyed each envious cover:
Which, lo! disclosed――that Fate should will it!
Calf’s head, mock turtle, and a fillet!
What could I do? To end my story,
I acted like a modern Tory;
For after all my long debate
On justice, cruelty and fate.
Like him I took the loaves and fishes,
And paid my court to all the dishes!
ANONYMOUS.
From _The Gownsman_, (Cambridge) December 31, 1830.
――――
Another Parody appeared in The _Gossip_ (London,) June 9, 1821,
commencing:
He that hath bent him o’er a goose,
When the first slice of breast is loose――
The first prime slice for tenderness,
The last for grateful savouriness;
(Before the glutton’s eager fingers
Have swept the dish where gravy lingers)
And mark’d the brown inviting air,
The harvest of fine cuts that’s there,
The firm yet greasy lumps that deck
The roundness of its luscious neck.
He who hath bent him o’er the bed
On which some dreamer rests his head,
Before the housemaid’s tapping fingers
Disturb the room where slumber lingers,
May possibly have pondered o’er
The fitful start and vacant snore;
And wondered, as his vision caught
The working of the slumberer’s thought,
How different a turn ’twould take
When he should be once more awake.
From _Beauty and the Beast_, by Albert Smith, 1843.
――――
THE BLIND NUISANCE.
He that don’t always bend his head
When London streets he fain would tread,
But with a mild and stately air,
From left to right doth idly stare,
Or looking round him, slightly lingers,
Twirling his guard-chain round his fingers,
Will, as he gives a look behind,
Not seeing where he means to go,
Receive from a tremendous blind,
An almost stupifying blow.
So darkly low, so lowly dim,
It breaks the hat from crown to rim.
The taller victim as he goes,
Receives the blind below his nose;
While the less loftier passer-by,
Sheathes the fierce ledge-point in his eye.
A cry of vengeance fills the air――
’Tis vain, police are wanting there.
_Punch_, 1847.
――――
THE NEXT MORNING.
(_Desecrated from Byron._)
HE who hath looked with aching head
Where pipes and glasses still are spread,
In the first hour of seediness,
The last of seeing such a mess
(Before the housemaid’s clumsy fingers
Have swept the rooms where smoke still lingers)
And marked the rank unwholesome air,
The evidence of gin that’s there,
The upset trays that plainly speak
Of what has caused that pallid cheek;
And but for that strong stale cheroot
Which sickens now his very soul,
And but for that half-empty bowl,
Where sugar, limes, and rum to boot,
Appal the seedy gazers heart,
As if they ne’er had formed a part
Of what he’d lavished praise upon――
Yes, but for these, and these alone
Some moments, aye, till office hour,
He still might doubt false whiskey’s power.
But no, to bed he faintly reels,
So sad the sight that room reveals.
_The Puppet Show_, April 8, 1848.
(The above lines were reproduced, without the slightest
acknowledgment, in the Summer Number of “_The Chiel_,” 1885.)
――――
THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS.
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime?
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime!
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress’d with perfume,
Wax faint o’er the Gardens of Gul in her bloom;
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute:
Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky,
In colour though varied, in beauty may vie,
And the purple of Ocean is deepest in dye;
Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,
And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?
’Tis the clime of the East; ’tis the land of the Sun――
Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done?
Oh! wild as the accents of lovers’ farewell
Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.
BYRON.
This will remind those who have read Goethe’s _Wilhelm Meister_ of
some verses sung by Mignon, which also form the theme of one of the
gems of the beautiful opera founded on that tale. In Carlyle’s
translation the poem opens thus:――
Know’st thou the land where lemon-trees do bloom,
And oranges like gold in leafy gloom;
A gentle wind from deep blue heaven blows,
The myrtle thick, and high the laurel grows?
Know’st thou it, then?
’Tis there! ’tis there
O my belov’d one, I with thee would go!
――――
INSCRIBED TO AN ALDERMAN.
Know ye the land where the leaf of the myrtle
Is bestowed on good livers in eating sublime?
Where the rage for _fat ven’son_ and love of the _turtle_
Preside o’er the realms of an epicure clime?
Know ye the land where the juice of the vine
Makes Aldermen learned, and Bishops divine?
Where each _Corporation_, deep flushed with its bloom,
Waxes fat o’er the eyes of the claret’s perfume?
Thick spread is the table with choicest of fruit,
And the voice of the reveller never is mute:
Their rich robes, though varied, in beauty may vie.
Yet the purple of BACCHUS is deepest in dye:――
’Tis the clime of the EAST――the return of the sun
Looks down on the deeds which his children have done:
Then wild is the note, and discordant the yell,
When, reeling and staggering, they hiccup――_Farewell._
From _Hone’s Year Book_, Vol. I., p. 1337――38.
――――
FIFTY YEARS AGO.
Know ye the town of the turkey and turtle?
Fit emblems of tales that are told in their clime,
Where stems of the laurel and leaves of the myrtle
Grow broad in balconies and glorious in rhyme!
Where the tongue of the news-seller never is mute,
And the orange-stands glow with their yellow cheek’d fruit,
Where the stains of the street and the smoke of the sky
And the purple of faces are darkest in dye?
Where statesmen are pure as the papers they sign.
And even the cloth of their coats superfine?――
O large as the sigh at a lover’s farewell
Are the fees which they take, and the fibs which they tell!
* * * * *
_The Theatrical Journal_, 1816.
――――
“Know ye the house in which Vestris and Nisbett
Are sparkling and bright as the pieces they act,
Where the wretch who wants money may safely make this bet
Five to one on Madame ’gainst the world――that’s a fact.”
This parody proceeded to describe the various members of the Covent
Garden Theatre Company.
_Punch_, Volume 2, 1842.
Another parody, of the same original, appeared in Punch, December 16,
1848, describing the advantages of emigration to Australia:――
Know’st thou the land where the kangaroos bound,
And the queer looking ornithorhynci are found?
The land of the south, that lies under our feet,
Deficient in mouths, overburdened with meat,
Know’st thou that land, JOHN BULL, my friend?
Thither, oh! thither, poor people should wend!
(Four verses omitted.)
――――
KNOW YE THE HOUSE.
Know ye the House where the Whigs and the Tories
Are emblems of deeds that are constantly done;
Where the prosing of Peel, when in candour he glories,
Now sinks into twaddle, now rises to fun?
Know ye the house, of the benches all green,
Where dozing at night many members are seen;
Where the dull words of Borthwick,――the figures of Hume
Wax faint, e’en to those whom to gull they assume;
Where parties but squabble for place and its fruit,
Where the voice of self-interest never is mute;
Where the Minister’s speech, and opponent’s reply,
In phrases though varied, in falsehood may vie,
And the strongest assertion’s the cleverest lie;
Where the heads are as soft as the yarns that they spin,
And all wish for change save the few that are in!
’Tis the House of the Commons――and Peel is its sun;
Can he smile when he thinks how the country is done?
Oh! vile as the votes which at Ipswich they sell,
Are the measures they pass, and the lies that they tell.
_Punch_, Volume 2, 1842.
――――
THE VAUXHALL MASQUERADE.
Know ye the scene where the clerks and the tailors
Are deck’d out in costume both dirty and fine;
Where till-robbing shop boys, as soldiers and sailors,
Now stoop down to beer――now ascend up to wine?
’Tis the place for a feast: not the region of fun.
Can we smile on the jokes that are made there?――not one.
Oh, pointless and dull, as Ojibbeway yell,
Are the tricks which they play, and the _bon mots_ they tell.
There a bevy of noodles, by puffing extreme,[111]
Are tempted to muster in numerous throng;
They’re off to Vauxhall, where they drink, dance, and scream,
And fancy they come it exceedingly strong.
Vauxhall’s Great _Bal Masqué_ I ne’er can forget;
And oft when alone, at the close of the year,
I think, are the vagabonds dancing there yet?
Are they still at their brandy and water, and beer?
_Punch_, 1844.
――――
THE MAYOR’S LAMENT FOR THE LOSS OF THE TURTLES.
“Several hundred lively turtles were thrown overboard a little while
ago from a ship bound for Liverpool. The Mayor of that town, who is
remarkable for hospitality, has been, ever since the sad event, in a
state of fearful despondency. The following touching lament has been
heard to issue from his windows at fitful and feverish intervals――
Know ye the loss of the beautiful turtles,
The emblems of soup, had they lived to this time?
Oh bind up my brows with the leaves of some myrtles,
Let me mourn for the loss of a feast so sublime.
Did they do it from fear?――did they do it in fun?
Sure no one could smile at the mischief they’ve done.
Had shipwreck been threaten’d, and had it been known,
That everything must have been overboard thrown.
Though the whole of the freight in the ocean were cast,
The turtles should always be kept till the last.
Oh, had I been there in that terrible hour,
As Mayor I’d at once have exerted my power,
And made the most active endeavours to save
The turtle alive, from a watery grave,
I envy thee, NEPTUNE――for thou art possess’d
Of a treasure by which I had hoped to be blessed;
I’m almost disposed to make one of thy group,
And drown myself, just to come in for the soup.”
_Punch_, 1846.
――――
REFLECTIONS ON A TEA TABLE.
Know ye the land where the hot toast and muffin
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their spheres;
Where scandalous stories and hints about nuffin,
Now melt into whispers, now rise into sneers?
Know ye the land where the liquids and cake
Their circumvolutions consecutive make;
Where POMPEY’S strong arms are oppressed with Pekoe,
And the air waxes faint with the scent of the sloe;
Where malice produces its bitterest fruit,
And the voice of detraction can never be mute;
Where the tints of the story, the shades of the lie
In number though varied, in falsehood may vie,
And the venom of scandal is deepest in dye;
Where virgins of fifty strange ringlets entwine,
In the fond misconception of looking divine?
’Tis the land of the teapot, the realm of the tray.
Can we smile when we know what their votaries say?
Oh! false as the curls of their ancientest belle,
Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.
_Punch_, December, 1846.
――――
THE FOREIGNER’S LAY OF LONDON.
Know ye the town where policemen and navvies,
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime!
Where the noise of the clocks, and the cries of the tabbies,
E’er rouse you to madness o’er roofs as they climb?
Know ye that Smithfield, abounding in kine,
Where the dirt ever blossoms, and beams never shine?
Know ye the land where their coffee is beans?
Their milk chalk and brains, and their tea is but greens,
Where they polish their apples and all other fruit,
And the voice of the muffin-man never is mute?
Where the tints of your nose and the chimney-pot high,
In colour not varied with blackness may vie,
And the soot that falls on you is deepest in dye?
’Tis the town of the North, and of great Exhibitions,
Of pickpockets, thieves, and of base impositions!
Can you smile as you ride and you know all the while,
That the cabman will charge you five shillings a mile?
Oh, false as the bills of an actor’s “farewell,”
Are the hearts that they bear, and the lies that they tell.
_The Month_, by Albert Smith and John Leech, October, 1851.
――――
THE PRIDE OF LONDON.
Know ye the stream where the cesspool and sewer
Are emptied of all their foul slushes and slimes,
Where the feculent tide of rich liquid manure
Now sickens the City, now maddens the _Times_?
Know ye the filth of that great open sink,
Which no filter can sweeten, no “navvy” can drink;
Where in boats overcrowded the Cockney is borne
To the mud-bounded gardens of joyous Cremorne;
Where the gas-works rain down the blackest of soot,
And the oath of the coal-whipper never is mute:
Where the liquified mud, which as “water” we buy,
With the richest of pea-soup in colour may vie,
And deodorisation completely defy;
Where the air’s fill’d with smells that no nose can define,
And the banks teem prolific with corpses canine?
’Tis the stream of the Thames! ’tis the Pride of the Town!
Can a nuisance so dear to us e’er be put down?
Oh! fouler than words can in decency tell
Are the sights we see there, and the scents which we smell!
_Punch_, September 11, 1852.
――――
A BYRONIC VALENTINE.
_A City Article._
Know’st thou the spot where the venison and turtle
Meet best, from the heather and tropical clime;
Where the fat of the latter is green as the myrtle,
And the former as pink as the rose in her prime?
Know’st thou the hall where old Magog and Gog
Laugh a-sly at the centuries onward that jog?
The spots where the markets dispense the cane fruit,
Where Manilla has brokers to sell her cheroot?
Where the “Bulls” ever raise, and the “Bears” e’er depress
Consols to a quarter the more or the less?
Where the rumours of earth, and the clouds of the sky
Bid the sellers to hold, or the knowing ones buy,
(Which the public in general thinks, “All my eye”)?
’Tis the place of the swain, ’tis the haunt of the one
Who thy beauty unceasingly ponders upon;
Whose passion for thee can ne’er suffer decline,
And till further advice is Thine Own Valentine.
_Diogenes_, February, 1853.
――――
THE PRIDE OF ENGLAND.
Know ye the Inn where the laurel and myrtle
Well emblem the green who are done ’neath its sign?
Where they serve you on plate which is mock as their turtle,
Now fleecing the tourist, now maddening the _Times_?
Know ye the shams of that ill-managed house,
Where the host ever bows, and the bills ever chouse;
Where the “wax-lights” that don’t half illumine your room
Give a muttonish rather than waxy perfume;
Where although you don’t see half a waiter all day,
For “attendance” as much as a lawyer’s you pay,
And find even then there’s an extra for “Boots.”
Nor the porters in asking for liquids are mutes;
Where your “bottle of sherry” (Cape under disguise,)
Scarce equals the vinegar-cruet in size,
And analysation completely defies;
Where the sofas are soft as yourself if you dine
At eight shillings a head――perchance even nine,
With the heaviest price for the lightest of wine?――
’Tis the English Hotel: and ’tis twenty to one
That, where’er you may enter it, brown you’ll be done.
For more than e’en _Punch_ in a volume could tell,
Are the shams they serve there, and the victims they sell.
_Punch_, 1853.
――――
GENERAL VIEW OF GREECE.
“Greece sided with Russia until France and England sent troops to the
Piræus, whereupon King Otho promised to observe strict neutrality.”
Knows’t thou the land were a sly press’s dirt’ll
Be flung upon all that won’t pay for it’s slime,
When the merchant’s a Doo, and the soldier’s a Thurtell,
And the lawyer’s their trusty accomplice in crime?
Knows’t thou the land once beloved of the Nine,
More lately the scene of Pacifico’s shine,
Where a soft head like Otho’s the crown could assume,
A King――with the mien of an underbred groom――
Where the traders in feats of rascality vie }
Where they cheat if you sell, and they cheat if you buy, }
And to list to a native’s to list to a lie. }
Where, if trees (as we say) may be known by their fruit,
One’s certain that Honesty never struck root.
Where their dastardly banner wears Christendom’s sign,
In type that each fight is a Cross, we opine?
’Tis the fair land of Greece, whose demoralised son
Exults in the hope that the Russians have won.
Oh! wild are his accents, when telegraphs tell
That our soldiers are doing their duty right well.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, 1854.
――――
A LESSON FOR LADIES.
“While the Lord Mayor elect and some friends were inspecting the
preparations for the Guildhall feast, the Lady Mayoress unhesitatingly
declared with reference to the turtle, that ‘she did not like the
nasty stuff!’”――_Daily News._
Know you the Lady who doesn’t like turtle,
And had the fine courage to speak out her mind;
Though Aldermen round her stood scowling like Thurtell,
And even her Chaplain lisped, “Rather unkyind,”
Long life to the woman who dared to declare it,
Be her gay Lady-Mayoralty marked by good luck:
Her robe fit divinely――her health last to wear it――
We don’t share her taste, but we honour her pluck.
The good City Queen sets a lesson to ladies
Who haven’t got minds, or have minds they don’t know:
Who don’t care if wine comes from China or Cadiz,
And simper alike over venison and _veau_!
We like a companion who knows what she’s eating,
(What chance for your tastes if she’s none of her own?)
So hip, hip, hurrah, for November that’s seating
A Sovereign like this on the Mansion House throne.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, 1856.
――――
JAMAICA.
(Written in 1866, when Governor Eyre was being prosecuted for his
excessive severity in suppressing the negro insurrection in Jamaica.)
Know ye the land of molasses, and rum
Emblems of deeds that are done in their clime
Where the cant of the nigger or the beat of his drum
Now melts into humbug, now maddens to crime――
Know ye the land of the cocoa and pine,
Where the trees that would blossom are left to decline
Where those who would toil must bear the attacks
Of those blood-thirsty vipers, Liberty’s Blacks?
Where murder and treason are the fairest of fruit,
And the voice of sedition never is mute
Where the sloth of the negro, cries aloud to the sky
And his vices tho’ varied, in horror may vie
With those crimes of man that are deepest in dye.
Where whites must bow down, if the negroes combine
For is not a nigger a spirit divine?
’Tis the land of the negro who once was a slave
How has he deserved the freedom we gave?
’Tis the clime of the west, ’tis the land of the sun
Can he smile on the deeds that these darkies have done?
Oh! fierce as the accents of foemen’s farewell
Are the hearts which they bear, and the lies which they tell.
W.H.
――――
DESCRIPTION OF THE MURTLE LECTURE DELIVERED IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL.
Know ye the Hall where the birch and the myrtle
Are emblems of things half profane, half divine,
Where the hiss of the serpent, the coo of the turtle,
Are counted cheap fun at a sixpenny fine?
Know ye the Hall of the pulpit and form,
With its air ever mouldy, its stove never warm;
Where the chill blasts of Eurus, oppressed with the stench
Wax faint at the window, and strong at the bench;
Where Tertian and Semi are hot in dispute,
And the voice of the Magistrand never is mute;
Where the scrape of the foot and the audible sigh
In nature though varied, in discord may vie,
Till the accents of Wisdom are stifled and die;
Where the Bajuns are dense as the cookies they chew,
And all save the Regents have something to do:――
’Tis our Hall of Assembly, our high moral School,
Must its walls never rest from the bray of the fool?
Oh, vain as the prospect of summer in May
Are the lessons they learn and the fines that they pay.
All the public discipline, fines, &c., are arranged and levied at the
Public School. The Bajuns, Semis, Tertians, and Magistrands are the
four years of men. The Regents are the four Professors――Greek, Nat.
Hist., Nat. Phil., and Mor. Phil.
From “_Life of Professor James Clerk Maxwell_” by Lewis Campbell and
William Garrett, 1882.
――――
A LUNATIC’S LOVE SONG.
O, know you the land where the cheese tree grows,
And the unicorn spins on the end of his nose;
Where the sea-mew scowls on the circling bat,
And the elephant hunts in an opera hat?
’Tis there that I lie with my head in a pond,
And play with a valueless Tichborne bond;
’Tis there that I sip pure Horniman’s tea
To the sound of the gong and the howling sea.
’Tis there that I revel in soapsuds and rum,
And wait till my creditors choose to come;
’Tis there that I dream of the days when I
Shall soar to the moon through the red-hot sky.
Then come, oh! come to that happy land!
And don’t forget your galvanic band;
We will play at cards in the lions den,
And go to bed when the clock strikes ten.
――――
AN ADDRESS TO LORD BYRON.
Know’st thou the land where the hardy green thistle,
The red-blooming heather and harebell abound?
Where oft o’er the mountains the shepherd’s shrill whistle
Is heard in the gloaming so sweetly to sound?
Know’st thou the land of the mountain and flood,
Where the pine of the forest for ages has stood,
Where the eagle comes forth on the wings of the storm,
And her young ones are rocked on high Cairngorm?
Know’st thou the land where the cold Celtic wave
Encircles the hills which its blue waters lave?
Where the virgins are pure as the gems of the sea,
And their spirits are light as their actions are free?
Know’st thou the land where the sun’s lingering ray
Streaks with gold the horizon, till dawns the new day,
Whilst the cold feeble beam which he sheds on the sight
Scarce breaks through the gloom of the cold winter’s night?
’Tis the land of thy sires!――’tis the land of thy youth,
Where first thy young heart glowed with honour and truth;
Where the wild fire of genius first caught thy young soul,
And thy feet and thy fancy roamed free from control!
Ah, why does that fancy still dwell on a clime
Where Love leads to Madness, and Madness to Crime:
Where courage itself is more savage than brave;――
Where man is a despot, and woman a slave?
Though soft are the breezes, and sweet the perfume,
And fair are the “gardens of Gul” in their bloom;
Can the roses they twine, or the vines which they bear,
Speak peace to the heart of suspicion and fear?
Let Phœbus’ bright ray the Egean wave,
But say, can it lighten the lot of a slave――
Or all that is beauteous in nature impart
One virtue to soften the Moslem’s proud heart?
Ah, no! ’tis the magic that glows in thy strain,
Gives life to the action and soul to the scene!
And the deeds which they do, and the tales which they tell,
Enchant us alone by the power of thy spell!
And is there no charm in thine own native earth?
Does no talisman rest in the place of thy birth?
Are the daughters of Albion less worthy thy care,
Less soft than Zuleika, less bright than Gulnare?
Are her sons less renowned, or her warriors less brave,
Than the slaves of a Prince who himself is a slave?
Then strike thy wild lyre, let it swell with the strain,
Let the mighty in arms live and conquer again;
Their past deeds of valour thy lays shall rehearse,
And the fame of thy country revive in thy verse.
The proud wreath of victory round heroes may twine,
’Tis the poet who crowns them with honour divine;
And thy laurels, Pelides, had sunk in the tomb,
Had the bard not preserved them immortal in bloom!
ANONYMOUS.
――――
JON DUAN’S TALE.
A STORY OF THE CONFESSIONAL.
Know ye the place where they press and they hurtle,
And do daring deeds for greed and for gain,
Where the mellow milk-punch and the green-fatted turtle
Now mildly digest, and now madden with pain?
Know ye the land of Stone and of Vine,
Where mayors ever banquet and aldermen dine;
Where Emma[112] was wooed, and Abbott laid low,
And they fly paper kites and big bubbles blow;
Where Gold is a god unassail’d in his might,
And neck-ties are loosened when stocks get too tight?
If this district you know――it is E.C. to guess,
And you go up a street which the Hebrews possess,
And turn to the right,――why, then, for a wager,
You come to the Church of St. Wackslite the Major;
And list, as o’er noises that constantly swell,
Comes the soul-stirring sound of its evensong bell.
From _Jon Duan_. London: Weldon and Co., 1874.
――――
THE COLORADO BEETLE.
A “Native of the Great American Desert” writes from Rosario on
Colorado and its bug:――“We knew that potato bug before he was
introduced into polite society and world-wide fame; he was then called
the ‘camote spoiler,’ a name derived from a sweet tuber that grows
wild all over Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. Generations would have
died ignorant of the very name of our newest State had it not been for
the potato bug; newspapers wrote, orators eulogized, and poets sang
about the advantages of Colorado, but all combined they could not
command the attention of anybody east of the Mississippi river until
that bug went booming across the Atlantic States and Ocean, and
actually entered the House of Lords and the Privy Councils of various
European monarchs. Since that day Colorado has become universally
known, and one of its mountain poets something in ideas like Goethe,
but in style after Byron, has chanted――
Is it where the cabbage grows so fast
That it bursts with a noise like a thunder’s blast,
Is it where thro’ the rich deep mellow soil
The beet strikes down as if digging for oil,
Is it where each irrigating sluice
Is fed with water-melon juice,
Where tatoes and onions are hard to beat
And the cattle get fat on nothing to eat,
Where everything grows to such a wondrous size
That the simplest stories appear like lies,
Tell me in sooth I’d like to know――
Is this the land they call Colorado?
“You bet! old hoss, it is!”
――――
PARODY.
BY AN OLD SOLDIER.
Know ye the land of reeds and of rushes,
Emblems of dampness innate in the clime,
Where the toad and the viper to show itself blushes,
And the damp air comes heavy impregnate with crime;
Where landlords in daylight like woodcocks they shoot
And the voice of the mendicant never is mute.
’Tis a land of the West, fair, glorious, and free,
First flower of the land, first gem of the sea;
I would we poor soldiers some method could learn,
To the depths of its bosom, this gem to return.
――――:o:――――
OVERWORKED.
They stood upon his nose’s bridge of size――
His spectacles; a book in either hand.
I saw a queer expression in his eyes,
As if a sunstroke in some tropic land
Had made his too colossal brain expand
More than it ought; and on his face odd smiles
Would come sometimes, and then he’d laughing stand,
Clutching his gown, and talking loud meanwhiles.
He wore a college cap, the mouldiest of tiles.
_Lays of Modern Oxford_, by Adon, 1874.
――――:o:――――
CABUL――SEPTEMBER, 1879.
The following poem obtained the first prize in a parody competition in
_The World_. Subject: “Cabul in September, 1879,” treated in the style
of Lord Byron’s _Siege of Corinth_.
’Tis done――the murd’rous work complete,
The turbaned hordes acclaim the feat:
Had fallen to a craven shot
The chiefest victim of a plot:
Brave leader! all too brave to date
A warning from Macnaughten’s fate.
His gallant comrades round him strown,
An English youth stands――stands alone.[113]
His gallant comrades round him lie
Dead; it remains for one to die.
Forth on the foe the soldier leapt;
And, as his blade a circle swept,
Five traitors felt the avenging brand,
Ere dropped it from the lifeless hand――
A glorious tale indeed to tell――
’Neath thousand blows one hero fell.
’Tis done――the slaughtered guests are spread
Under a hecatomb of dead.
No need of marble pile to show
Where sleep the illustrious slain below;
No need of graver’s art to trace
In lettered brass their resting place,
Their own right arms, in death still feared,
Eternal monument have reared:
Where, ere they fell, these warriors stood,
They wrote their epitaph in blood.
These devotees of Islam’s creed
Shrink not to violate at need
The laws they worship; the behest
Of reverence due to hallowed guest.
Ah, but it were a goodly boast――
A stranger murdered by his host!
Yet think not, dastards, England slow
To recompense so foul a blow,
If payment meet could deal the sword
To miscreants honoured by the cord.
Where to the skies their summits push
The giant Alps of Hindu Kush;
Where Cabul’s river hastes to hide
His shame beneath a mightier tide;
Where, with a scorn of time, proclaim
The records of a bygone fame
The ravished fanes, whose ruins trace
The march of Timour’s conquering race
And, mid her oft-beleagured towers,
Dark Ghuzni’s fortress sternly lowers;
Where many mouthèd Helmund makes
His briny home in Seistan’s lakes――
Not long delayed, the cannon’s boom
Shall sound the knell of Cabul’s doom.
MERTON.
_The World_, October 1, 1879.
――――:o:――――
THE CIVIC MAZEPPA.
“The disappearance of GIBBS from the civic procession created some
little astonishment, and many were the inquiries as to what had become
of him. The following Poem gives a bold, but very probable, notion of
how the Alderman was really occupied on the day of the opening of the
Royal Exchange. It is supposed that some of his fellow parishioners,
meeting with him in a back street, caught hold of him, and tied him on
to a horse, which got dreadfully into a-rear, and was then suffered to
run on without the smallest check――thus typifying the state of the
accounts of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook. The Poem begins at the period
when the Alderman is about to undergo his equestrian martyrdom.”
“Bring forth the horse!” the horse was brought;
In truth he was a noble steed――
A creature of the hackney sort,
Dash’d slightly with the dray-horse breed,
His sire had drawn a fly,
Into which six would often cram;
His mother was of lineage high,
Himself was worth――well worth his dam.
He plunged, he kick’d, he reared, he snorted,
With ears erect and eye distorted;
He switched his tail, he show’d his hoof――
E’en WIDDICOMB had kept aloof
At sight of such a noble steed,
He was a precious beast indeed.
They seized me fiercely by the daddle;
They thrust me down into the saddle;
They tied me strongly by the bridle:
The horrid brute began to shy,
To kick, to amble, and to sidle,
And then away they let him fly;
Away, away! my breath is gone;
Still gallop, gallop, gallop on,
Down, down the street, and up the Strand,
Over the woman’s apple-stand.
We pass the cabs, and here we are,
Plunged at one bound through Temple Bar.
The courser’s fleetness seems to mock
The slowness of St. Dunstan’s Clock.
Away, away, we madly whisk
Along! past Waithman’s Obelisk!
On, on we go, we gallop still
Up Ludgate’s gently rising hill.
A moment now our way seems barr’d,
Oh! shall we stop at last?
’Tis the barrier at St. Paul’s Church Yard――
No, no, he gallops past.
I pull’d the bridle, but in vain,
The horse refused my will to heed;
Each motion of the useless rein
But madden’d him to wilder speed.
I tried my voice; but nonsense, pooh!
Onwards the brute contemptuous flew:
At times I thought he must have stopp’d,
When ’gainst an omnibus he whopp’d;
But vain my hopes! the sudden blow
Served but to make him faster go.
Away, away, we turn and wind,
Leaving the city far behind.
He tears away, hock touching hock,
Swift up the hill of Haverstock:
Until, with just exhausted breath,
At last he reaches Hampstead Heath.
The brute has only strength to bound
Into the well remembered Pound;
Where in the morning we were found
By a policeman going his round.
_Punch_ 1844.
The above poem was accompanied by a spirited, and very comical
illustration, showing the worthy Alderman strapped on the bare-backed
steed, which is urging on his wild career, followed by astonished
beadles and policemen.)
――――
DON JUAN.
Bob Southey! You’re a poet――Poet-laureate,
And representative of all the race;
Although ’tis true that you turn’d out a Tory at
Last,――yours has lately been a common case;
And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at?
With all the Lakers, in and out of place?
A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye
Like “four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye.”
* * * * *
BYRON.
DEDICATION.
Ben Dizzy! You’re a humbug――Humbug-laureate,
And representative of all the race;
Although ’tis true that you turned out a Tory at
Last, yours is still an enigmatic face.
And now, O Sphyntic renegade, what are you at
With all the Rurals in and out of place?
Where will you leave the boobies in the lurch――
Have you resolved to double D―――― the Church?
You’ve dished the Whigs before; we now would sing.
What is the pie that you’re so busy making?
A dainty dish to set before the Thing――
Or aught that its digestion will be shaking?――
Or is it Discord’s apple that you bring?
Or will you set the good old Tories quaking,
By saying that they hitherto have missed tricks,
By not going in for equal polling districts?
You’ll educate them, won’t you, Master Ben?
And make them think that they are clever, very,
Until the trick is won, and they’ll wish then,
They’d taken you _cum grano Salis_-bury.
No wonder Mr. Miall’s making merry,
And rallying his Liberation men――
He sees your tongue so plainly in your cheek,
When in your Church’s champion _rôle_ you speak.
Go on, neat humbug, laughing in your sleeve.
And winking, as you bid the Church not falter;
We joy to see her aid from you receive,
To guard her ’gainst the dangers that assault her;
The English Church has had her last reprieve,
Now _you_ are standing boldly by her altar.――
Already in the glass we see the image,
Of an impending, big religious scrimmage.
* * * * *
_Jon Duan_, by the authors of _The Coming K――――_. 1874.
――――:o:――――
DON JUAN
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,――
Where Delos rose, and Phœbus sprung.
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires’ “Islands of the Blest.”
The mountains look on Marathon――
And Marathon looks on the sea:
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persian’s grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
* * * * *
Trust not for freedom to the Franks――
They have a king who buys and sells:
In native swords and native ranks,
The only hope of courage dwells;
But Turkish force and Latin fraud,
Would break your shield, however broad.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade――
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But, gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine――
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
BYRON.
――――
MEDITATIONS BY A DESPAIRING ANGLER.
The Isle of Eels! The Isle of Eels!
Where Mrs. Hopkins dined and sung;
Where first (as this seared heart reveals),
My passion for the Widow sprung!
The pies are good, and so’s the ale――
But all to me is flat and stale!
Where Richmond looks on Teddington,
In patient guise I threw my line;
And fishing there (and catching none)
I dreamt, that she might still be mine:
For, dressed in Doudney’s light gambroon,
I could not deem myself a spoon.
Fill high the glass with ginger wine!――
We will not think on this here theme;
Nor for the charming Widow pine;
Others may yet _more charming_ seem.
More charming? Ah, it cannot be――
Her _equal_ never made the tea!
Fill high the glass with ginger wine!――
On Richmond’s bridge, or Twit’nam’s shore,
Oft had I held my rod and line,――
But never had a bite before!
There was a downright tug that day;――
But ah! he tugged, and swam away!
And where is he? And where art thou,
My widow? At the Angler’s heart
_Thou_ gav’st one mighty tug, and now
Art fled――but hast received no smart!
Such loss would sure a Stoic move――
My only fish! My only love!
Place me on Railton’s stunted post[114]
(Queer pedestal for France’s Fear);
And fishing there with Nelson’s Ghost,
I’m sure I’d catch as much as here!
Doudney and line no more be mine――
Dash down――no, don’t――that ginger wine!
_Punch_, 1844.
――――
THE SMILES OF PEACE.
The Smiles of Peace, the Smiles of Peace,
By Foreign need from England wrung,
Have bid the cannon’s war-shout cease,
The Thanks be said, the Anthem sung:
But there is that (besides our Debt)
Which English hearts should not forget.
It was not, surely, to amuse
The gossip’s hour of Club dispute,
We sat down daily to peruse
Those tales from Camp, where man and brute
Alike endured the sternest test
That ever crushed our brave, our best.
Disraeli looks on Palmerston,
And Palmerston on Mr. D.,
And in debates that last till one
They taunt each other skilfully;
But there be questions far too grave
To edge a mere debater’s glaive.
Ten thousand men of fearless brow,
On lips they loved laid parting kiss――
O, titled soldiers! answer how
A needless Death has claimed them his.
They went, one well-remembered day――
Some few brief months, and where were they?
What! silent still, and silent all?
O no, the damning charge is read――
Even now, in Chelsea’s trophied Hall,
The judges sit, the scrolls are spread,
And haughty blunderers blustering come――
Unknown the shame that makes men dumb.
In vain, in vain accuse those Lords,
All Lords are right, by right divine,
No, gild anew their tarnished swords,
And let bereft plebeians whine:
You ask for proof of soldier’s skill――
How vaunts each bungling Bobadil!
You’ve Lord John Russell’s lectures yet,
Where’s William Russell’s teaching gone:
Of two such lessons, why forget
The bolder and the manlier one?
You have the letters William gave
Think you he meant them for a Shave?
Trust not men who lodge in banks
The price of swords your System sells;
Seek, in the people’s healthier ranks
The fire that no disaster quells;
But slang Routine, and jobbing Fraud
Will break your back, however broad.
Along Pall-Mall a martial line!
Our Life-Guards ride with helm and blade.
I see each glittering cuirass shine,
But, gazing on the gay parade,
I own a wish to bite my nails,
To think such horses ate their tails.
Her lofty place would England keep
In Europe’s none too loving eye,
She’d make one grand and final sweep
Of all her System’s pedantry.[115]
But no――she bows by right divine.
Dash dumb that Punch’s impious shine!
SHIRLEY BROOKS, 1856.
――――
IN VINO VERITAS.
The wines of Greece! the wines of Greece!
(T’was thus a Shambro’ merchant sung)
It gives the tortured mind no peace,
To think that Britons, old and young,
Their Port and Sherry can forget,
For Santorin, or mount Hymett.
* * * * *
Fill high the vat with Shambro’ wine!
We will not think on themes like these
Let’s call the mixture Sherry fine,
Or any other name they please.
Rebuke not, friends, the buyer’s voice:
Who pays his cash should take his choice.
_Punch_, October 7, 1865.
――――
THE ILLS OF GREECE.
The ills of Greece, the ills of Greece,
By glowing GLADSTONE warmly sung!
Lord B. brought honour back with peace,
And Greece aside is coolly flung,
For wider boundaries yearning yet,
Which don’t she wish that she may get?
Vague promise might awhile amuse,
Make her for fight less resolute;
Now help or counsel we refuse,
And even sympathy is mute.
We’ve urgent bothers East and West,
And Greece’s claims may be――well, blest!
* * * * *
Fill high the bowl with Cyprus wine!
Hang hopes of nationalities!
The SULTAN’S much more in our line,
He serves some schemes of cute Lord B’s.
A tyrant?――well, perhaps; but then
He plays our game, my countrymen!
_Punch_, April 26, 1879.
――――
MUSICAL NOTES.
(_On the Claims of Greece._)
I.
The claims of Greece! the claims of Greece!
Which burning Byron boldly sung,
When in that land were few police
And robbers every day were swung,
Eternal humbug gilds you yet
And all against you dead are set.
II.
Lo! the _Dispatch_, the _Daily News_,
Charles Dilke, with many a gay recruit,
Have told how Greece the Powers abuse;
And even Fleet Street is not mute
To sounds which echo with more zest
At Rooms of Willis in the West.
III.
Charles Dilke, he looked at Lord Lansdowne――
Lansdowne, he looked at Rosebery――
And sitting there in study brown
They passed the bottle rather free;
Then sang o’er “dead men’s” _empty_ graves,
“Greeks never, never, shall be slaves!”
* * * * *
(Five verses omitted.)
_The Sporting Times_, June 14, 1879.
――――
The following lines were quoted by Mr. G. A. Sala, in the _Illustrated
London News_, 24 May, 1879, _apropos_ of a meeting held at Willis’s
Rooms, in favour of the claims of Greece to the Treaty rights promised
at Berlin:――
The Claims of Greece! The claims of Greece!
Which Dilke declared and Roseb’ry sung,
Which Dizzy in his Berlin Peace,
To the Greek Kalends coolly flung.
Eternal Moonshine gilds them yet,
And moonshine’s all they’ll ever get!
――――
THE AISLES OF ROME.
I.
The aisles of Rome! the aisles of Rome!
Where burning censers oft are swung,
Where saints are worshipp’d ’neath the dome,
Where banners sway and mass is sung――
In Papal Sees these aisles have place,
But English churches they disgrace.
II.
The vestments, many-hued and quaint,
The alb, the stole, the hood, the cope,
The prayers to Virgin and to saint――
These are for them who serve the Pope:
Shame! that such mummeries besmirch
The ritual of the English Church!
III.
I took the train to Farringdon,
From Farringdon I walked due E.;
And musing there an hour alone,
I scarce could think such things could be.
At Smithfield――scene of martyrs slain――
I could not deem they died in vain.
IV.
And is it so? and can it be,
My country? Is what we deplore
Aught but a phase of idiocy?
Is England Protestant no more?
Is she led captive by a man――
The dotard of the Vatican?
V.
Must we but weep o’er days more blest?
Must we but blush?――our fathers bled.
Earth, render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our martyred dead!
Of all the hundreds grant but three
To fight anew Mackonochie.
From _Jon Duan_, by the authors of _The Coming K――――_ and
_The Siliad_. Weldon and Co., London, 1874.
Another imitation of the same original commencing――
“The isles decrease, the isles decrease,
The last fog-signal now has rung,”
occurs in _Faust and Phisto_, Beeton’s Christmas Annual for 1876, but
it has no literary interest, nor merit as a parody.
――――
THE CLAIMS OF GREECE.
The Claims of Greece! The Claims of Greece!
No doubt Miss SAPPHO loved and sung,
But how can Europe keep the peace,
The wily Greek and Turk among:
Eternal summer may be there,
But noise of war is in the air.
The nations look on Marathon,
And wonder sometimes will there be
A fight like that which erst went on
Between the mountains and the sea:
Where Turk and Greek may find a grave,
If neither party will behave.
A BISMARCK sat with furrowed brow,
And scanned the Treaty of Berlin,
Quoth he, “There’ll be a fearful row,
My interference must begin.
We’ll arbitrate.” He spoke, when lo!
Both Greece and Turkey answered “No!”
“Trust not for freedom to the Franks,”
Was BYRON’S sage remark to Greece
He bids the Hellenes close their ranks,
Their only hope for full release.
They’ve ta’en his counsel it would seem;
Yet surely ’tis an idle dream?
“Fill the high bowl with Samian wine,”
Whatever Samian wine may be;
And still let Grecian temples shine,
Be Greece inviolate and free:
But ne’er shall European peace
Be broken for the claims of Greece!
_Punch_, January 29, 1881.
――――
NICE IN MAY 1874.
“The town of Nice! the town of Nice!
Where once mosquitoes buzzed and stung
And never gave man any peace,
The whole year round, when he was young!
Eternal winter chills it yet;
It’s always cold, and mostly wet.
Lord Brougham sat on the rocky brow
Which looks on sea-girt Cannes, I wis;
But wouldn’t like to sit there now,
Unless ’twere warmer than it is.
I went to Cannes the other day,
But found it much too damp to stay.
The mountains look on Monaco,
And Monaco looks on the sea
And, playing their some hours ago,
I meant to win enormously;
But, though my need of coin was bad
I lost the little that I had.
Ye have the Southern charges yet
Where is the Southern climate gone
Of two such blessings, why forget
The cheaper and the better one?
My weekly bill my wrath inspires;
Think ye I meant to pay for fires?
Why should I stay? no worse art thou,
My country! On the genial shore
The local east winds whistle now,
The local fogs spread more and more;
But in the sunny South the weather
Beats all you know of put together.
I cannot eat――I cannot sleep――
The waves are not so blue as I;
Indeed, the waters of the deep
Are dirty brown, and so’s the sky.
I get dyspepsia when I dine――
Oh, dash that pint of country wine!”
This parody appeared in _Temple Bay_ for March 1886, in a paper
entitled _Humours of Travel_ by Herman Merivale, but it had previously
been printed in a volume entitled “_The White Pilgrim, and other
Poems_” by the same author, and published by Chapman and Hall, London
1883.
――――
THE SMILES OF PEACE.
The smiles of Peace, the smiles of Peace,
Which Gladstone in Midlothian sung!
A song we hope may never cease
Though Jingoes yell, with blatant tongue,
To fight――not for themselves, you bet!
And howl for blood, and――“Heavy Wet!”
We look up to the Grand Old Man,
And he looks out upon the sea
Of stormy politics, which can
Be still’d by none so well as he!
For standing at the Nation’s helm,
He safely guides the British Realm.
Fill high the bowl with Gladstone wine――
The sunny purple wine he gave――
Let fame and Bacchus round him twine
The wreaths that crown the good and brave!
His solid worth the nation rules,
Though worried by bombastic fools.
Trust not to Tories for a peace――
They have a chief who longs for war,
Let tax and income tax increase.
Pay! ’tis what we’re created for,
Better to fight, and glory win,
Than hoard a pile of useless “tin.”
Keep firm on Ministerial height
He who nor man nor nation fears――
He who seeks peace, yet fears not fight――
Whose strength and knowledge come with years――
Who knows that peace on earth’s divine!
Here’s Gladstone’s health in Gladstone wine!
_Funny Folks_ May 23, 1885.
――――
RENOUNCE THE PAPER UNION CREED.
The Liberal seats! the Liberal seats!
That we in ’eighty proudly won!
Whence――while we suffered few defeats――
We saw the Stupid Party run!
Again we fight these borough’s, yet
Nothing, except disgrace, we get!
The Unionist and Tory crews,
Led on, alas! by honest Bright,
Have gained the day; and men refuse
To vote the Grand Old Chieftain right,
Save in the Island of the West,
Where scarce a Tory dares contest.
The Liberals look to Chamberlain,
And Chamberlain looks sour and glum;
Yet, seeing what he had to gain,
We’d hoped that Joseph round would come.
For, gazing back upon his past,
We could not think his――spleen?――would last.
The chief sat in St. Stephen’s, where
He’d nobly worked for fifty years;
He saw the Liberals crowded there,
And heard with joy their hearty cheers.
He looked at them one winter’s day――
And in the summer――where were they?
And where are they? And where art thou,
O Gladstone? In thy voiceless age
The heroic task comes harder now;
Soon must thou quit “the ungrateful stage.”
And must thy part, praised in all lands,
Degenerate into pigmy hands?
’Tis something, in this shameful hour,
When beaten, with the fettered race,
To know at least that those in power
This question cannot choose but face.
And they may yield to craven fear,
However brave they now appear.
Why should we moan o’er times more blest?
Why should we wail? Our fathers worked!
The Tory must not peaceful rest,
The Irish Bill must not be burked!
’Tis but delayed, and time shall see
Another Ireland, glad and free!
Coercion now? Repression still?
Ah, no!――that sort of thing is dead!
You may reject our Home Rule Bill,
But tell us, what have you instead?
The eighty-six recruited come,――
Say, can coercion make them dumb?
In vain, in vain! Strike other chords!
Renounce your Paper Union Creed!
In spite of thirty thousand swords,
The Irish nation will be freed!
See! rising at their country’s call,
Who fronts you in St. Stephen’s Hall!
You have the Liberal leader yet;
Where is the Liberal phalanx gone?
You have two courses. Why regret
To take the nobler, manlier one?
You have the path that Justice shows――
And you’ve a nation to oppose!
Renounce the Paper Union creed!
You cannot govern men with this
Your Irish brethren you may need
When foreign foes around you hiss,
Renounce it, and the Irish then
Will prove themselves your countrymen.
The peasant of the sister Isle
has with our best and bravest bled,
That peasant now is all that’s vile――
Or――is your sense of justice dead?
Do right, and you perhaps will find
Him generous still, and brave, and kind.
No more these idle fictions whine!
On Liffey’s banks, on Shannon’s shore,
Exists the remnant of a line
Such as your English mothers bore.
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown
The British blood might proudly own.
Trust not the Tories and their pranks,
Despite the tales their leader tells;
In Irish hearts and Irish ranks
The old, strong love of justice dwells!
But Tory force and Tory fraud
Would crimson swift Rebellion’s sword!
Renounce the Paper Union Creed!
Our party, though now in the shade,
Shall still, with glorious Gladstone, lead!
Repulsed we are; not yet dismayed.
No isle whose shore the Atlantic laves
Can ever be the land of slaves.
Place what you will before the House,
There nothing, save an Irish bill,
Will pass. Meanwhile, let Liberals rouse――
Prove Liberal England’s Liberal still!
The Irish claim we must concede,
And have no Paper Union Creed.
G.W.
_Pall Mall Gazette._ July 13, 1886.
――――:o:――――
_Warreniana_, by Mr. William F. Deacon (London, 1824), contained an
excellent parody on _Childe Harold_, unfortunately it is too long to
give in full, but some stanzas may be quoted.
THE CHILDE’S PILGRIMAGE.
1.
Whileome in Limehouse docks there dwelt a youth,
Childe Higgins hight, the childe of curst ennui,
Despair, shame, sin, with aye assailing tooth,
Had worn his beauty to the bone.――Ah me!
A lone unloving libertine was he;
For reft of health and hope’s delusive wiles,
And tossed in youth on passion’s stormy sea,
He stood a wreck ’mid its deserted isles,
Where vainly pleasure wooes and syren woman smiles.
2.
He was a merchant, ’till ennui’d with toil
Of counting house turned but to small account,
Sated of home, and Limehouse leaden soil,
Nee more to his dried heart a freshening fount
Of kindly feelings; he aspired to mount
To intellectual fame, for when the brain
Is dulled by thoughts, aye fearful to surmount,
When youth, hope, love, essay their charms in vain,
The rake-hell turns a blue as doth his sky again.
3.
Thus turned the Childe, when in the Morning Post,
The Herald, Chronicle, and eke the Times,
He read with tasteful glee a daily host
Of the Strand bard’s self eulogistic rhymes;
He read, and fired with zeal, resolv’d betimes
A pilgrim to that minstrel’s shrine to move,
As Allah’s votaries in Arabian climes
To far Medina’s hallowed altar rove,
There low to bend before the idol of their love.
4.
He left his home, his wife without a sigh,
And trod with pilgrim-pace the Limehouse Road;
The morn beamed laughing in the dark blue sky,
And warm the sun on post and pavement glowed:
Each varied mile new charms and churches showed,
But sceptic Higgins jeered the sacred band;
For his full tide of thought with scorn o’erflowed,
Or deep immersed in objects grave and grand,
Dwelt on the Warren’s fame at number Thirty, Strand.
* * * * *
11.
Th’ Exchange is past, the Mansion House appears,
Surpris’d the Childe surveys its portly site,
Dim dreams assail him of convivial years,
And keener waxes his blunt appetite,
Luxurious visions whelm his fancy quite,
Of calipash and ekecalipee,
While sylphs of twenty stone steal o’er his sight,
Smiting their thighs with blythe Apician glee,
And licking each his lips right beautiful to see.
12.
’Twas here they tucked, these unctuous city sprites,
’Twas here like geese they fattened and they died.
Here turtle reared for them her keen delights,
And forests yielded their cornuted pride.――
But all was vain, ’mid daintiest feasts they sighed;
Gout trod in anger on each hapless toe;
Stern apoplexy pummelled each fat side,
And dropsy seconded his deadly blow,
’Till floored by fate they sunk to endless sleep below.
* * * * *
15.
Something too much of this; but now ’tis past,
And Fleet Street spreads her busy vale below:
Lo! proud ambitious gutters hurry past,
To rival Thames in full continuous flow;
The inner temple claims attention now,
That Golgotha of thick and thread-bare skulls,
Where modest merit pines in chambers low,
And impudence his oar in triumph pulls
Along the stream of wealth, and snares its rich sea-gulls.
* * * * *
19.
Thus mused the Childe as thoughtful he drew near
The sacred shrine of number Thirty, Strand,
And saw bright glittering in the hemisphere
Like stars on moony nights――a sacred band
Of words that formed the bard’s cognomen grand
Each letter shone beneath the eye of day,
And the proud sign-boot, by spring breezes fanned,
Shot its deep brass reflections o’er the way,
As shoots the tropic morn o’er meads of Paraquay.
* * * * *
21.
But I forgot――my pilgrim’s shrine is won
And he himself――the lone unloving Childe
His Limehouse birth, his name, his sandal-shoon,
And scallop shell are dreams by fancy piled:
His dull despairing thoughts alone――once mild
As love――now dark as fable’s darkest hell,
Are stern realities; but o’er the wild
Drear desert of their blight the soothing spell
Of Warren’s verse flits rare as sun-beams o’er Pall Mall.
22.
Farewell――a word that must be and hath been
Ye dolphin dames who turn from blue to grey
Ye dandy drones who charm each festive scene
With brainless buzz, and frolic in your May,
Ye ball-room bards who live your little day,
And ye who flushed in purse parade the town,
Booted or shod――to you my muse would say,
“BUY WARREN’S BLACKING” as ye hope to crown
Your senseless souls or soulless senses with renown.
――――:o:――――
AFTER THE EXAMINATION.
I.
Without one lingering look he leaves
The spot of all his troubles past,
With thoughtful heart; for he believes
The dons have made this chance his last.
Those hated schools, brain-addling place,
That seems to haunt his mind for ever,
And sight of which before his face,
Makes all his limbs with horror shiver――
Shiver as though had fallen smack
A douche of water on his back
And arms and neck and head and face,
So hated was that awful place;
But it must come, and all must go
Where, sitting sternly in a row
Examiners, with looks that chill,
Pluck those that do their papers ill.
II.
And he has gone to his lonely room
To sit alone by the fireside;
He stirs the fire with the broom,
And does eccentric things beside.
For flurried by the exam, he seems,
And while his hissing kettle steams,
He mutters deep within his breast,
“What causes this delay?
If with Testamur I am blest,
It can’t be far away.”
And then the toasting-fork he takes,
And with it in the cinders rakes,
And makes it in a fearful mess,
And then he walks in restlessness
About his room, while minutes creep
More slowly than in prison keep.
III.
He plucked his toothpick in his pocket,
But sheathed it ere the point was bare;
He rolled his eye within its socket,
And passed his fat hand through his hair;
Nay more――he took his meerschaum then,
And gazed upon it with a look
Of absent wonder, then he took
And put it in its case again;
And mopped his brow all cold and damp,
And blew his nose, and lit his lamp,
Then in his arm chair sat and numbered
The weary minutes till he slumbered.
From _Lays of Modern Oxford_. By Adon. London.
Chapman and Hall, 1874.
(These lines parody stanzas 4, 5, and 7 of _Parasina_. The same volume
contains a parody of _The Prisoner of Chillon_, entitled _Snowed Up_,
but it is not of sufficient interest to be quoted.)
――――:o:――――
MISCELLANEOUS PARODIES OF LORD BYRON’S WORKS.
A very large number of Parodies of Byron’s poems have been produced in
the form of small pamphlets, either on political or social events, or
of purely local interest. It will be sufficient to enumerate the
principal of these, the curious in such matters can easily refer to
them in the Library of the British Museum.
_The Age of Soapsuds._ A Satire, by Lord Vyron. London.
W. Edwards, 1839; pp. 15.
In his preface the author remarks: “We live in an age of bubbles,
and if the ‘Soapsud’ of the following lines seem blown about on
the gale of fancy――all I can say is, I write to please myself,
and not the critics.”
_Despair_: A Vision. _Derry Down and John Bull_: A Simile.
Being two Political Parodies on “Darkness,” and a scene from
“The Giaour,” by Lord Byron. London. T. Hughes
1820.――Political, and of no interest at present.
_Arlis’s Pocket Magazine for_ 1825, contained a parody of
“The Maid of Athens,” entitled _Sarah, I Love Thee_.
_Railway Adventures and Anecdotes_, edited by Richard Pike, 1884,
contains a parody on the lines commencing――“There was a sound of
Revelry by night.”
_The Mongrelites; or, The Radicals so-called._ A Satiric Poem.
By ――――. Published in New York, by Van Evrie, Horton and Co.,
in 1866 (59 pp.)
This is said by the author to be an imitation of Byron’s
“English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” but as it relates to
the party politics of the United States it does not come
within the scope of this collection.
Two prize poems, in imitation of _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_
were printed in _The World_, April 14, 1880. The subject chosen was
_Electioneering Speeches_, the poems were therefore of merely passing
interest.
In 1834 a small sixpenny pamphlet was published by Chalmers and Son,
of Edinburgh, entitled _Lays of Straiton House_. It contained several
poems, written in imitation of Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, and of a few
popular songs. These were descriptive of the Caledonian Bazaar and its
contents were of local interest only, and are now quite out of date.
_Abel_: written, but with great humility, in reply to Lord
Byron’s _Cain_. By Owen Howell. London: John Mardon, 1843;
pp. 22.
“The object of Lord Byron in his drama ‘Cain,’ was to embody
all the emotions of Despair as they act upon the human mind;
in the present poem (if it deserves the name) the author has
endeavoured to personify Hope, and to bring together as many
pleasing expectations as possible.”
_Cain_: A Poem, intended to be published in Parts, containing
an Antidote to the Impiety and Blasphemy of Lord Byron’s
Cain. By Henry Wilkinson, Stone-gate, York. London: Baldwin,
Cradock and Joy. 1824. pp. 97.
(A short poem, with voluminous notes, violently abusive of
Lord Byron’s poem, and his theological views.)
Several of Lord Byron’s poems have been produced upon the
stage, the most notable examples being _Manfred_, brought out
at Drury Lane Theatre some years since, with grand scenic
effects; and _Mazeppa_, at Astley’s Theatre, with Ada Isaacs
Menken in the title _rôle_. _Mazeppa_ has, however, long been
quite a stock piece with Circus proprietors, and as far back
as December 27, 1858, a burlesque of it (written by the late
Henry James Byron) was produced at the Olympic Theatre, with
F. Robson, H. Wigan, Miss Wyndham, and Mrs. Emden in the
caste, which had a long and successful run.
The late Mr. Gilbert Abbot a’Beckett wrote a burlesque,
entitled _Man-Fred_ in 1828; and Mr. H. Such Granville wrote
“_Sardanapolus_, or The Light of other Days, an original
Ninevitish Burlesque,” which was first performed at St.
George’s Hall, on December 23, 1868, when the author
performed the part of _Zarina_.
“_The Bride of Abydos_; or, The Prince, the Pirate, and the
Pearl” was the title of another Burlesque, written by the
late Henry James Byron,[116] and produced at the Strand
Theatre, with a strong caste, including Mr. H. J. Turner,
Miss M. Oliver, and Miss Swanborough.
As a rule these burlesques merely give a ludicrous turn to
the plot of the original poems, and contain little which
could be quoted as interesting parodies.
Amongst the numerous Parodies, Imitations and continuations of Lord
Byron’s unfinished poem, _Don Juan_, the following may be mentioned:
_Don Juan Unmasked_, 1819.
_Gordon_, a review of Don Juan, 1821.
_The Templar_. A Poem in the Stanza and Spirit of Don
Juan, with allusions to Lord Byron. 1822.
_A Sequel to Don Juan_, London, 1825.
_Juan Secundus_, 1825.
_An Apology for Don Juan_, Cantos I and II, 1824.
_The Seventeenth Canto of Don Juan_, London, 1829.
_Don Juan Junior_, a poem (with notes), by Byron’s Ghost,
edited by G. K. Wythen Baxter, 1839.
_Don Juan reclaimed_, 1840.
_Termination of Don Juan_, H. W. Wetton, 1864.
_Don Juan_, Canto the Seventeenth. London, Thomas Cooper and
Co., 1870. (In this curious production the author has
spread his scanty materials over 56 pages, by the simple
expedient of leaving about a quarter of them blank.)
_Some Rejected Stanzas of Don Juan_, with Byron’s own curious
notes. From an unpublished manuscript in the possession of
Captain Medwin. A very limited number printed at Charles
Clarke’s private press, Great Totham, Essex, 1845.
This consists of twenty stanzas relating to the early
history of Ireland, is coarse in its language, and of no
general interest,
_The Royal Progress_, a Canto, with notes written on the
occasion of his Majesty’s visit to Ireland, August, 1821,
London, 1821.
Dedicated to Lord Byron, and written in imitation of his
_ottava rima_ metre in Don Juan. p.p. 95.
_Don Juan_, Canto the third, London. Printed by R. Greenlaw,
Holborn, 1821. p.p. 103. (An imitation.)
_An Apology for Don Juan_, by John W. Thomas, London,
Partridge and Oakey, 1850.
New Don Juan, and the Last Canto of the Original ‘Don Juan.’
From the papers of the Contessa Guiccioli. 12mo. pp. 61,
1876.
_The Vampire._ This publication was at one time ascribed
to Byron, but a letter of his exists, denying this. It is
dated April 27, 1819, from Venice. This Letter is not to
be found in Moore’s Collection of Byron’s Letters, its
discovery having been first announced in the _Academy_,
April 23, 1881.
“I am not the author, and never heard of the work in
question until now. In a more recent paper I perceive a
formal annunciation of ‘The Vampire,’ with the addition of
an account of my ‘residence in the Island of Mitylene,’ an
island which I have occasionally sailed by in the course
of travelling some years ago through the Levant――and where
I should have no objection to reside――but where I have
never yet resided.… Neither of these performances are
mine, and I presume that it is neither unjust nor
ungracious to request that you will favour me by
contradicting the advertisement to which I allude. If the
book is clever it would be hard to deprive the real
writer――whoever he may be――of his honours; and if
stupid――I desire the responsibility of nobody’s dulness
but my own.… The imputation is of no great importance, and
as long as it was confined to surmises and reports I
should have received it as I have received many others――in
silence. But the formality of a public advertisement of a
book I never wrote――and a residence where I never
resided――is a little too much, particularly as I have no
notion of the contents of one, nor the incidents of the
other. I have, besides, a personal dislike to ‘Vampires,’
and the little acquaintance I have with them would by no
means induce me to divulge their secrets.”
_Brum: A Parody._ By old Sarbot. A small pamphlet of 29
pages, without author’s or publisher’s name, date, or
place, but evidently printed in Birmingham, and dealing
with persons and incidents connected with that town.
Ossian’s Address to the Sun. Lines supposed to have been
written by Byron on a leaf of the second volume of
Macpherson’s ‘Ossian.’ These volumes are preserved in the
library at Harvard University. The MS. notes and the
‘Address’ are now known to be forgeries.
The Vampyre. Letters, spurious. By Dr. Polidori, Sherwood,
Neely and Jones, 1819.
The Suppressed Letters of Lord Byron. Collected by H.
Schultess-Young. R. Bentley, 1869. Publication suspended.
A Spiritual Interview with Lord Byron: his Lordship’s
Opinion about his New Monument. 12mo. pp. 18. 1875.
Strange Visitors, a series of original papers, embracing
philosophy, religion, poetry, art, fiction, satire, humor,
etc., by the spirits of Thackeray, Bronte, Byron, Browning
and others now dwelling in the spirit-world, dictated
through a Clairvoyant state, _Boston_, 1884.
This curious volume contains:――By W. M. Thackeray, _His
Post-Mortem Experience_; by Lord Byron, _To His Accusers_;
by Edgar A. Poe, _The Lost Soul_; and by Charlotte Bronte,
_Agnes Reef, a tale_.
――――:o:――――
DON JUAN UNREAD (1819.)
_By Dr. W. Maginn, Trin. Coll., Dublin._
Of Corinth Castle we have read,
Th’ amazing scene unravell’d;
Had swallowed Lara and the Giaour.
And with Childe Harold travell’d.
And so we followed Cloven-foot,
And faithfully as any,
Until he cried, “Come, turn aside
And read of Don Giovanni.
“Let Whiggish folk, frae Holland House,
Who have been lying, prating,
Read Don Giovanni, ’tis their own,
A child of their creating.
On jests profane they love to feed,
And there they are――and many,
But we, who link not with the crew,
Regard not Don Giovanni.
“There’s Goodwin’s daughter, Shelley’s wife
A’writing fearful stories;
There’s Hazlitt, who with Hunt and Keats,
Brays forth in Cockney chorus.
There’s pleasant Thomas Moore, a lad
Who sings of Rose and Fanny;
Why throw away, their wits so gay
To take up Don Giovanni.
“What’s Juan but a shameless tale
That bursts all rules asunder?
There are a thousand such elsewhere
As worthy of your wonder――
Strange words they seemed of slight and scorn
His lordship looked not canny;
And took a pinch of snuff, to think
I flouted Don Giovanni!
“O, rich,” said I, “are Juan’s rhymes,
And warm the verse is flowing
Fair crops of blasphemy it bears,
But we will leave them growing.
In Pindar’s strain, in prose of Paine,
And many another Zany
As gross we read, so where’s the need
To wade through Don Giovanni?
“Let Colburns’ town-bred cattle snuff
The sweets of Lady Morgan;
Let Maturin to amorous themes
Attune his barrel organ.
We will not read them, will not hear
The Parson or the granny,
And, I dare say, as bad as they,
Or worse, is Don Giovanni.
“Be Juan, then, unseen, unknown;
It must, or we shall rue it.
We may have virtue of our own,
Ah! why should we undo it?
The treasured faith of days long past
We still would prize o’er any,
And grieve to hear the ribald jeer
Of scamps like Don Giovanni.
“When Whigs with freezing rule shall come
And piety seems folly,
When Cam and Isis, curbed by Brougham,
Shall wander melancholy;
When Cobbet, Wooler, Watson, Hunt,
And all the swinish many,
Shall rough shod ride o’er Church and State,
Then hey! for Don Giovanni.”
――――
Thomas Moore,
_Born May_, 28, 1780. _Died February_, 25, 1852.
’Tis THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER.
’Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them;
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o’er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay;
And from Love’s shining circle
The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie wither’d,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
THOMAS MOORE.
――――
THE FIRST ROSE OF SUMMER.
’Tis the first rose of summer that opes to my view,
With its bright crimson bosom all bathed in the dew;
It bows to its green leaves, with pride from its throne,
’Tis the queen of the valley, and reigneth alone.
O! why, lovely stranger, thus early in bloom?
Art thou here to assure us that summer is come?
The primrose and harebell appear with the spring,
But tidings of summer the young roses bring.
Thou fair gift of nature, I welcome the boon;
Was’t the lark of the morning that ’woke thee so soon?
Yet I weep, thou sweet flow’ret; for soon from the sky
The lark shall repose, where thy leaves withered lie.
O! if beauty could save thee, thou ne’er would’st decay,
But, alas! soon thou’lt perish and wither away;
And thy kindred may blossom, and blossom as fair,
Yet I’ll mourn, lonely rose-bud, when thou art not there.
ROBERT GILFILLAN. 1831.
――――
THE FIRST ROSE OF SUMMER.
’Tis the first rose of summer
That blushing steals forth,
Still doubtful, and fearing
The blight of the north;
Her sister buds cower,
Beneath on the stem,
While yon lone one is smiling
In fragrance o’er them.
I’ll not pluck thee young rose bud,
Nor mar thy fresh bloom;
Soon yon dark cloud may wrap thee
In coldness and gloom:
Then bask while thou may’st,
In the bright sun’s lov’d smile
And dream of light dewdrops,
And blue skies the while.
So in life’s sunny morning
Spreads forth hope’s fair flow’r,
How soon to be blighted
In sorrow’s drear hour;
Still, while friendship smiles o’er it,
And joy brightens round,
May no demon’s dark malice,
To blight it be found.
From _Wiseheart’s Fashionable Songster_ or Gems of Melody.
Dublin.
――――
EPSOM RACES.
’Tis the last man in London
Left lounging alone,
All his bottle companions
To Epsom are gone:
No friend of the Regent
Or Bond do I see,
To kill on this pavement
His cursed ennui.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine in this street,
Since Verey has jellies,
We’ll stroll in and eat.
Thus at Epsom they’re crowded,
In London we’re cramm’d,
And whilst we are _jellied_,
They’re probably _jamm’d_.
_The National Omnibus_, May 27, 1831.
――――
THE OLD MAID.
I’m the last Rose of summer,
And wither alone;
All my lovely companions
Are wedded and gone.
No soul of my kindred,
No maiden is nigh,
To reflect back my wrinkles,
And heave sigh for sigh.
Yet peaceful I rest me
Upon my lone bed,
No tyrant molests me,
I mourn no Babe dead.
Thus cheerful I scatter
Regrets to the air,
And rejoice in my freedom
From discord and care.
Alone must I perish,
Alone I decay:
No daughter to cherish,
No son for a stay.
I sink to the slumber,
Of Death’s calm repose,
Till the Bridegroom, rejoicing,
Shall claim his last Rose.
From _The Maids’, Wives’, and Widows’ Penny Magazine_, December
29, 1832.
――――
THE LAST SUMMER BONNET.
’Tis the last summer bonnet,
The worse for the wear;
The feathers upon it
Are dimm’d by sea air:
Gay places it went to,
But lingers at last,
A faded momento
Of sunny days past.
The prejudice still is
For poets to moan,
When roses and lillies
Are going and gone:
But fashion her sonnet
Would rather compose
On summer’s last bonnet,
Than summer’s last rose!
Though dreary November
Has darken’d the sky,
You still must remember
That day in July,
When, after much roaming,
To Carson’s we went
For something becoming
To take into Kent.
You, long undecided
What bonnet to choose,
At length chose, as I did,
The sweetest of blues;
_Yours_ now serves to show, dear,
How fairest things fade;
And _I_ long ago, dear,
Gave mine to my maid.
Oh! pause for a minute,
Ere _yours_ is resign’d:
Philosophy in it
A moral may find:
To past scenes I’m hurried,――
That relic revives
The beaux that we worried
Half out of their lives.
’Twas worn at all places
Of public resort:
At Hogsnorton races,
So famous for sport;
That day, when the Captain
Would after us jog,
And thought us entrapt in
His basket of prog!
He gave _me_ a sandwich,
And not being check’d
He offered a hand――which
I chose to reject!
And then _you_ were teased with
The gentleman’s heart,
Because you seemed pleased with
His gooseberry tart!
’Twas worn at the ladies
Toxopholite fête.
(That sharpshooting trade is
A thing that I hate;
Their market they mar, who
Attempt, for a prize,
To shoot with an arrow
Instead of their eyes.)
And don’t that excursion
By water forget;
Sure summer diversion
Was never so wet!
To sit there and shiver
And hear the wind blow,
The rain and the river,
Above, and below!
But hang the last bonnet
What is it to us,
That we should muse on it,
And moralize thus?
A truce to reflecting:
To Carson’s we’ll go,
Intent on selecting
A winter chapeau.
Then let Betty take it,
For Betty likes blue;
And Betty can make it
Look better than new:
In taste Betty’s fellow
Was never yet seen;
She’ll line it with yellow,
And trim it with green!
THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY, in _The New Monthly Magazine_, 1833.
――――
’TIS THE LAST BIT OF CANDLE.
’Tis the last bit of candle,
With flickering light,
All its pound of companions,
Have finished their night;
While here we sit toping,
And waking the sun,
To shine on the revel,
As merely begun.
Thou sink’st in the socket,
The grease of thy wick,
Is failing and failing,
As smiles of the sick;
The lips most bewitching,
The eyes most divine,
Are scarcely less fleeting,
In ceasing to shine.
O, My last bit of candle,
Thou’lt not be alone,
Go stink in the grease pot,
Thy brethren are gone:
Though moon ne’er should light us,
Though gone be thy spark,
We can all find our glasses,
And mouths in the dark.
From _Wisehearts Merry Songster_. Dublin.
――――
THE LAST LAMP OF GRAFTON’S ALLEY――CORK.
The last lamp of the Alley,
Is burning alone!
All its brilliant companions
Are shiver’d and gone.
No lamp of her kindred,
No burner is nigh
To rival her glimmer,
Or light to supply.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To vanish in smoke;
As the bright ones are shatter’d
Thou, too, shalt be broke.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy globe o’er the street
Where the watch in his rambles
Thy fragments shall meet.
Then home will I stagger
As well as I may,
By the light of my nose sure
I’ll find out the way.
When thy blaze is extinguished,
Thy brilliancy gone,
Oh! my beak shall illumine
The Alley alone.
WILLIAM MAGINN.
――――
THE LAST CIGAR.
’Tis a last choice Havana
I hold here alone;
All its fragrant companions
In perfume have flown.
No more of its kindred
To gladden the eye,
So my empty cigar-case
I close with a sigh.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine; but the stem
I’ll bite off and light thee
To waft thee to them.
And gently I’ll scatter
The ashes you shed,
As your soul joins its mates in
A cloud overhead.
A pleasure is fleeting,
It blooms to decay
From the weed’s glowing circle,
The ash drops away.
A last whiff is taken,
The butt-end is thrown,
And with empty cigar-case
I sit all alone.
――――
THE STRAW HAT OF SUMMER.
’Tis the straw hat of summer
All tattered and torn;
All the brim has departed,
Its crown is well worn.
But no hat is there like it
So dear to my heart;
It has kept off the sunshine
In meadow and mart.
There it hangs o’er the window;
Its glory is shorn,
For my foolish affection
Don’t laugh me to scorn;
It is grimy and greasy,
And ragged ’tis true,
But its value in mem’ry
Is more than when new.
Though a horse would not eat it
In such a sad state,
It is worthy of meeting
A far better fate.
It is hardly sufficient
To kindle a fire
But I’ll make of its fragments
A funeral pyre.
Oh! companion of summer,
Go with thee my joy,
Thou hast served me with ardour
That knew no alloy.
So then peace to thy ashes
Thy loss grieves me sore,
I shed o’er thee tear drops
Of friendship of yore.
――――
THE LAST OF THE FANCY.
A Lament for the Anticipated Extinction
of the Prize Ring.
’Tis the last of the Fancy,
Left pining alone,
All his “nobby” companions
Are mizzled and gone!
No “pal” of his kindred
No bruiser is nigh,
To exchange broken noses
Or give a black eye!
“I’ll not leave thee, thou game one,
To pine in the ring;
Since the strong ones have mizzled,
Go――do the same thing.
Thus, kindly I gather
The ropes from the ground,
Where thy pals of the Fancy
Have fought the last round!”
The Art none will follow
When prizes decay,
And from patrons and backers
The “tin” drops away;
When all, e’en a novice,
To mill with have flown,
Ah! who, then, would flourish
His “mauleys” alone?
_Judy_, July 10, 1867.
――――
AN OXFORD PARODY. ON SMOKING.
’Tis the last weed of Hudson’s
Left lying alone;
All his dark brown Regalias
Are vanished and gone.
No cigar of its colour,
No “Lopez” is mine,
To delight with its perfume
And fragrance divine.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one
I’ll ring for a light;
Thy companions are ashes,
I’ll smoke thee to-night.
Thy halo and incense
Shall rise o’er my head,
As I sigh for the beauties
All scentless and dead.
And soon may I follow
Those loved ones’ decay;
Since from each tempting bundle
They’ve faded away.
When Regalias are smoked out,
And “Lopez” are blown,
Oh! who would still linger,
Cigarless, alone?
J. R. G.
From _Hints to Freshmen in the University of Oxford_.
(J. Vincent, Oxford.)
――――
The following parody of _The Last Rose of Summer_ is rather
slangy, and would not have been inserted, but for the fact that
it originally appeared in part 9 of _The Snob_ (June 4, 1829), a
small paper published in Cambridge, to which it is known that
Thackeray contributed. It is, therefore, not improbable that he
was the author of this parody.
’Tis the last little tizzy
My pocket what’s in,
O, its pale-faced companions
I’ve changed ’em for gin!
There’s not a brass farden
To rub ’gainst his ribs,
For ah! in my pocket
There’s never no dibs!
I’ll not keep thee, thou lone one,
Here moping with me,
With thy friends in the gin-shop
Go tizzy, and spree;
So down on the counter
That sixpence I vacks,
And has ’stead of him, Sir,
Four glasses of max!
But they vont give no credit,
So I has no more,
I’ll go and pick pockets
By Drury-Lane door;
About the Theaturs
There’s lots to be had
And ven I gets flush, vy
I’ll guzzle like mad.
――――
AN AUTUMN SESSION.
’Tis the last of the members
Left spouting alone;
Half the Whigs and the Tories
Are grouse shooting gone.
Not the creatures of Althorp,――
No hireling is nigh
To defend all his blunders
And give lie for lie.
Will they force you, ye lone ones,
To sit till Septem-
Ber? No; others are sporting,
Go sport ye with them.
Then fain would I scatter.
This ghost of a house,
Where their mates of St. Stephen’s
Are bagging the grouse.
So soon may you rise when
Debates do decay,
And from all the divisions
Each side keeps away.
For when Whigs are all vanished,
And Tories are flown,
Oh, who would attend at
The Bleak house alone.
_Figaro in London_, August 17, 1833.
――――
’TIS THE LAST FLY OF SUMMER.
’Tis the last fly of summer,
Left buzzing alone,
All its black-legged companions
Are dried up or gone:
Not one of its kindred,
No bluebottles nigh,
To sport ’mid the sugars,
Or in the milk die.
I’ll not doom thee, thou lone one,
A victim to be,
Since the rest are all vanish’d,
Come dine thou with me.
Thus kindly I scatter
Some crumbs of my bread,
Where thy mates on the table
Lie withered and dead.
But soon you will perish
I’m sadly afraid,
For the glass is at sixty
Just now in the shade.
When wasps have all vanish’d
And bluebottles flown,
No fly can inhabit
This bleak world alone.
_Punch’s Pocket Book_, 1848.
――――
THE LAST “VIVA VOCE.”
He’s the last “Vivâ Voce”
Left sitting alone;
All his lucky companions
Have finished and gone:
Not a man from his College,
No friend is there nigh
To get his “Testamur,”
And walk down the “High.”
“I’ll not keep thee, thou lone one,
To pine in these ‘quads,’――
Since your papers are ‘satis’――
We’ll let you through ‘mods.’
Thus kindly I give thee
Our leave to go down,
Where thy mates of the College
Await thee in town.”
“So soon may _I_ follow,
When friends will not stay,
And the ‘Common Room’ circle
Has melted away.
When rooms are all empty,
And their tenants are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This slow place alone?
From _College Rhymes_, 1868.
――――
THE LAST BELLE OF SUMMER.
’Tis the last belle of summer,
Left blooming alone,
For her lovely companions
All seaward have gone.
No dame of her kindred,
No chaperon’s nigh――
I will see if see if she blushes,
Or gives sigh for sigh,
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine in the square,
While thy sisters are breathing
The ozoned sea air.
Though thy flowers in the garden
Lie scentless and dead,
I will bring thee a bouquet
From Johnson’s instead.
Say, love, may I follow
When thou goest away
To the family circle
Beside the salt spray?
For when “swells” have all vanished,
And “belles” have all flown,
I could not inhabit
Belgravia alone.
_Funny Folks._
――――
THE LAST PIPE.
’Tis the last pipe this winter,
Left squirting alone;
All its leaden companions
Are frozen and gone,
No turncock was handy,
No plumber was nigh;
And each cistern kept running
Until it was dry.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
While icicles gem
Thy tap, or else, bursting,
Thou wilt be like them;
But gaily I’ll scatter
Some straw o’er thy bed,
And the crack I discover
Will stop with white-lead.
I thus shall get water,
Though turncocks delay
Round the plug’s shining circle
Fixed over the way.
While lead pipes have frozen,
And iron ones flown,
I see thee with gladness
Still squirting alone.
_Funny Folks._ February 1, 1879.
――――
THE LAST JAR OF PICKLES.
’Tis the last jar of pickles,
Left standing alone,
All its other companions
Are eaten and gone!
No one of its kindred,
No pickle is nigh,
To tickle my stomach,
And draw forth a sigh,
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
Tho’ I’ve just finished three,
And the others are eaten,
I’ll likewise eat thee;
Thus kindly I’ll swallow
Thee down, like the rest,
Go! find your companions,
They’re under my vest:
So soon may I follow
When pickles are scarce,
And from friendship’s circle
Withdraw my bluff face.
When walnuts, and cabbage,
And onions are gone,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
ANONYMOUS.
――――
In _The Weekly Dispatch_ for May 22, 1881, there was a parody
competition, and the prize of Two Guineas was awarded for the
following poem:
LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL.
[Since the defection of his three friends, the once famous “Fourth”
party consists of Lord Randolph alone.――Daily Paper.]
He’s the last of his party
Left sitting alone;
All his brilliant companions
Have left him and gone.
No Gorst of his kidney――
No Balfour is nigh,
To reflect his bright flashes
Or applaud him sky high!
They have left him, the lone one,
To speak all alone;
His audience are sleeping,
They cough and they groan.
Yet pertly he’ll patter
(Though he should be abed),
For his tongue’s ever ready,
Though senseless his head!
So soon may he follow
His “party’s” decay;
From whose brilliant circle
Those three dropped away,
With Gorst, Wolff, and Balfour
Seceded and flown,
He can’t long inhabit
That bleak bench alone!
R. H. LAWRENCE.
Several of the non-successful parodies were also printed, of which the
best are here given:――
’Tis the last baked potato
Left swelt’ring alone;
All her mealy companions
Are parted and gone,
No floury kidney――
No ash leaf is nigh,
To share her seclusion
And rest eye to eye.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To shrivel apart;
Since the mealy digest well,
Come――sleep near my heart.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy peel at my feet,
Where the whelk and the orange
Perfume the dull street.
Soon, too, will I follow
Thy chariot away,
As the glimmering gas lights
Fade into the day.
When winkles lie soulless,
And ’taties are strown,
Oh, who then would wander,
The pavement alone?
W. W. DIXON.
――――
THE POLICEMAN’S LAY.
’Tis a prime leg of mutton,
Cut near to the bone;
All the greens and potatoes
Are surely not gone!
No haughty inspector――
No sergeant is nigh,
To reflect on what he’d do
If hungry and dry.
I’ll not leave that nice bone――one
May see ’tis a gem;
Since the folks are all sleeping,
It’s nothing to them,
Thus gaily I’m feasting――
For freely I’m fed――
While my mates on their night beat
Are famished instead.
Some strong beer I’ll swallow,
Then forth I must stray,
And from kitchen and “cooky”
Steal gently away.
When prog is demolished,
And liquor is gone,
Oh, who would be a p’liceman
This bleak night alone?
LIZZIE GRIFFIN.
――――
’Tis the last rose of Windsor[117]
Left blooming alone;
All the other Princesses
To Hymen have gone,
No kindred as suitors
At present are nigh,
But “Monty,” ’tis whisper’d,[118]
Receives sigh for sigh.
And will he be grafted
On royalty’s stem?
And will he be happy
When quite one of them?
What more borrow’d honours
Must o’er him be shed,
From the name of the living,
The fame of the dead?
The bay and the laurel
May soon fade away;
His brow has a circle
Which cannot decay,
And if he can marry
So near to the throne,
Why should he inhabit
This bleak world alone?
FRED. RAWKINS.
――――
’TIS THE LAST BLOWS OF A DRUMMER.
_By a Poor and Unmusical Civilian._
’Tis the last blow of a drummer,
Who stands all alone,
And calls the battalions
With monotonous moan
No hour ever passes,
No day e’er goes by,
But this sound my ear crushes
Though from it I fly.
I lived near the barracks,
Till well nigh insane,
And now, when I’m sleeping
I hear that refrain.
Thus blindly I flatter
The thing I most dread,
Since my thoughts don’t discard it
When even in bed.
So soon as the morrow
Succeeds to to-day
May that drum and its drummer
Be wafted away;
For if they continued
their rub-a-drum call,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world at all?
From _Cribblings from the Poets_, by Hugh Cayley, Cambridge, 1883.
――――
HOME RULE.
’Tis the last _ruse_ of someone
Left blooming alone;
All his lovely companions,
Are faded and gone;
No flower of his kidney
Save Rosebery’s nigh,
To reflect back his gushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.
I’ll not leave thee, thou “old hand,”
To skulk in thy den,
Till the landlords are settled,
We’ve Home Rule again;
Thus kindly I flourish
My rod o’er thy head,
While the mates of thy Council
Lie senseless and dead.
How soon may I follow
Should friendship decay.
And from eighty-five “mimbers”
The funds fall away;
If Home Rule lies withered,
And Parli’mint’s flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
Bleak Erin alone?
E.L.
_The Globe_ (London), April 12, 1886.
――――:o:――――
THE MANIFESTO.
(_Mr. Parnell addressed the Irish People on the subject of the Royal
Visit._)
Let Erin remember each craze of old,
Now her foremost foes invade her,
America send the dollar of gold
In the sacred task to aid her;
To aid her to see all her banners are furled――
Let who will not look out for danger;――
Turn the emerald gem to a brick to be hurled
At the helpless head of the Stranger.
When far from the revels the Home-Ruler strays,
Whiskey hot, whiskey cold, declining,
He’ll dream of the glories of other days,
And scorn the low joys of dining!
Thus shall Saxons be taught by a pose sublime
That their pride and their prestige are over,
And the Prince and the Princess will know next time
What thick heads a few caubeens do cover!
_Punch_, March 21, 1885.
――――:o:――――
WHEN HE WHO ADORES THEE.
When he, who adores thee, has left but the name
Of his fault and his sorrows behind.
Oh! say wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame
Of a life that for thee was resign’d?
* * * * *
T. MOORE.
――――
TO A BOTTLE OF OLD PORT.
When he who adores thee has left but the dregs
Of such famous old stingo behind;
Oh! say, will he bluster or weep,――no――’ifegs!
He’ll seek for some more of the kind.
He’ll laugh, and though doctors perhaps may condemn,
Thy tide shall efface the decree,
For many can witness, though subject to phlegm,
He has always been faithful to thee!
With thee were the dreams of his earliest love,
Every rap in his pocket was thine,
And his very last prayer, ev’ry morning, by Jove,
Was to finish the evening in wine.
How blest are the tipplers whose heads can outlive
The effects of four bottles of thee;
But the next dearest blessing that heaven can give,
Is to stagger home muzzy from thee!
W. MAGINN.
――――
TO JOLLY.
When he who adjures thee has left but the shame
Of his pamphlets and postcards behind,
Oh! say――wilt thou weep when they darken the fame
Of a seat that by me was resigned?
Yes weep! but, although in your heart you condemn,
Remember ’twas only through me
You attained to the right to put after your name
The coveted letters “J.P.”