Thy _Patties_--thou wert hand-and-glove with Moore,
Who call’d thee “_Kitchen Addison_”--for why?
Thou givest rules for Health and Peptic Pills,
Forms for made dishes, and receipts for Wills,
“_Teaching us how to live and how to die_?”
There came thy Cousin-Cook, good Mrs. Fry--
There Trench, the Thames Projector, first brought on
His sine _Quay_ non,--
There Martin would drop in on Monday eves,
Or Fridays, from the pens, and raise his breath
‘Gainst cattle days and death,--
Answer’d by Mellish, feeder of fat beeves,
Who swore that Frenchmen never could be eager
For fighting on soup meagre--
“And yet (as thou wouldst add) the French have seen
A Marshal _Tureen_?”
Great was thy Evening Cluster!--often graced
With Dollond--Burgess--and Sir Humphry Davy!
’Twas there M’Dermot first inclined to Taste,--
There Colburn learn’d the art of making paste
For puffs--and Accum analysed a gravy.
Colman--the Cutter of Coleman Street, ’tis said,
Came there,--and Parkins with his Ex-wise-head,
(His claim to letters)--Kater, too, the Moon’s
Crony,--and Graham, lofty on balloons,--
There Croly stalked with holy humour heated,
(Who wrote a light-horse play, which Yates completed)--
And Lady Morgan, that grinding organ,
And Brasbridge telling anecdotes of spoons,--
Madame Valbrèque thrice honour’d thee, and came
With great Rossini, his own bow and fiddle,--
The Dibdins,--Tom, Charles, Frognall, came with tuns
Of poor old books, old puns!
And even Irving spared a night from fame,
And talk’d--till thou didst stop him in the middle,
To serve round _Tewah-diddle_![6]
Then all the guests rose up, and sighed good-bye!
So let them:--thou thyself art still a _Host_!
Dibdin--Cornaro--Newton--Mrs. Fry!
Mrs. Glasse, Mr. Spec!--Lovelass and Weber,
Mathews in Quot’em--Moore’s fire-worshipping Gheber--
Thrice-worthy Worthy! seem by thee engross’d!
Howbeit the Peptic Cook still rules the roast,
Potent to hush all ventriloquial snarling,--
And ease the bosom pangs of indigestion!
Thou art, sans question,
The Corporation’s love--its Doctor _Darling_!
Look at the Civic Palate--nay, the Bed
Which set dear Mrs. Opie on supplying
“Illustrations of _Lying_!”
Ninety square feet of down from heel to head
It measured, and I dread
Was haunted by a terrible night _Mare_,
A monstrous burthen on the corporation!--
Look at the Bill of Fare for one day’s share,
Sea-turtles by the score--oxen by droves.
Geese, turkeys, by the flock--fishes and loaves
Countless, as when the Lilliputian nation
Was making up the huge man-mountain’s ration!
Oh! worthy Doctor! surely thou hast driven
The squatting Demon from great Garratt’s breast--
(His honour seems to rest!--)
And what is thy reward?--Hath London given
Thee public thanks for thy important service?
Alas! not even
The tokens it bestow’d on Howe and Jervis!--
Yet could I speak as Orators should speak
Before the Worshipful the Common Council
(Utter my bold bad grammar and pronounce ill,)
Thou shouldst not miss thy Freedom for a week,
Richly engross’d on vellum:--Reason urges
That he who rules our cookery--that he
Who edits soups and gravies, ought to be
A _Citizen_, where sauce can make a _Burgess_!
TO THE DEAN AND CHAPTER OF WESTMINSTER.
“Sure the Guardians of the Temple can never think they get enough.”--
CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.
Oh, very reverend Dean and Chapter,
Exhibitors of giant men,
Hail to each surplice-back’d adapter
Of England’s dead, in her stone den!
Ye teach us properly to prize
Two-shilling Grays, and Gays, and Handels,
And, to throw light upon our eyes,
Deal in Wax Queens like old wax candles.
Oh, reverend showmen, rank and file,
Call in your shillings, two and two;
March with them up the middle aisle,
And cloister them from public view.
Yours surely are the dusty dead,
Gladly ye look from bust to bust,
And set a price on each great head,
And make it come down with the dust.
Oh, as I see you walk along
In ample sleeves and ample back,
A pursy and well-order’d throng,
Thoroughly fed, thoroughly black!
In vain I strive me to be dumb,--
You keep each bard like fatted kid,
Grind bones for bread like Fee-faw-fum!
And drink from skulls as Byron did!
The profitable Abbey is
A sacred ‘Change for stony stock,
Not that a speculation ’tis--
The profit’s founded on a rock.
Death and the Doctors in each nave
Bony investments have inurn’d,
And hard ’twould be to find a grave
From which “no money is returned!”
Here many a pensive pilgrim, brought
By reverence for those learnëd bones,
Shall often come and walk your short
Two-shilling fare upon the stones--[7]
Ye have that talisman of Wealth
Which puddling chemists sought of old
Till ruin’d out of hope and health--
The Tomb’s the stone that turns to gold!
Oh, licensed cannibals, ye eat
Your dinners from your own dead race,
Think Gray, preserved--a “funeral meat,”
And Dryden, devil’d--after grace,
A relish;--and you take your meal
From Rare Ben Jonson underdone,
Or, whet your holy knives on Steele,
To cut away at Addison!
Oh say, of all this famous age,
Whose learnëd bones your hopes expect,
Oh have ye number’d Rydal’s sage,
Or Moore among your Ghosts elect?
Lord Byron was not doom’d to make
You richer by his final sleep--
Why don’t ye warn the Great to take
Their ashes to no other heap!
Southey’s reversion have ye got?
With Coleridge, for his body, made
A bargain?--has Sir Walter Scott,
Like Peter Schlemihl, sold his shade?
Has Rogers haggled hard, or sold
His features for your marble shows,
Or Campbell barter’d ere he’s cold,
All interest in his “_bone_ repose?”
Rare is your show, ye righteous men!
Priestly Politos,--rare, I ween;
But should ye not outside the Den
Paint up what in it may be seen?
A long green Shakspeare, with a deer
Grasp’d in the many folds it died in,--
A Butler stuff’d from ear to ear,
Wet White Bears weeping o’er a Dryden!
Paint Garrick up like Mr. Paap,
A Giant of some inches high;
Paint Handel up, that organ chap,
With you, as grinders, in his eye;
Depict some plaintive antique thing,
And say th’ original may be seen;--
Blind Milton with a dog and string
May be the Beggar o’ Bethnal Green!
Put up in Poet’s Corner, near
The little door, a platform small;
Get there a monkey--never fear,
You’ll catch the gapers, one and all!
Stand each of ye a Body Guard,
A Trumpet under either fin,
And yell away in Palace Yard
“All dead! All dead! Walk in! Walk in!”
(But when the people are inside,
Their money paid--I pray you, bid
The keepers not to mount and ride
A race around each coffin lid.--
Poor Mrs. Bodkin thought, last year,
That it was hard--the woman clacks--
To have so little in her ear--
And be so hurried through the Wax!--)
“Walk in! two shillings only! come!
Be not by country grumblers funk’d!--
Walk in, and see th’ illustrious dumb,
The Cheapest House for the defunct!”
Write up, ’twill breed some just reflection,
And every rude surmise ’twill stop--
Write up, that you have no connection
(In large)--with any other shop!
And still, to catch the Clowns the more,
With samples of your shows in Wax,
Set some old Harry near the door
To answer queries with his _axe_.--
Put up some general begging-trunk--
Since the last broke by some mishap,
You’ve all a bit of General Monk,
From the respect you bore his Cap!
ON AN UNFAVOURABLE REVIEW.
“I’ll give him dash for dash.”
Jerdan, farewell! farewell to all
Who ever praised me, great or small
Your poet’s course is run!
A weekly--no, an every-day
Reviewer takes my fame away,
And I am all undone!
I cannot live an author long!
When I did write, O I did wrong
To aim at being great;
A Diamond Poet in a pin
May twinkle on in peace, and win
No diamond critic’s hate!
No small inditer of reviews
Will analyse his tiny muse,
Or lay his sonnets waste;
Who strives to prove that Richardson,
That calls himself a diamond one,
Is but a bard of paste?
The smallest bird that wings the sky
May tempt some sparrow shot, and die;
But midges still go free!
The peace that shuns my board and bed
May settle on a lowlier head,
And dwell, “St. John, with thee!”
I aimed at higher growth; and now
My leaves are withered on the bough,
I’m choked by bitter shrubs!
O Mr. F. C. W.!
What can I christen thy review
But one of “Wormwood Scrubs?”
The very man that sought me once--
(Can I so soon be grown a dunce?)
_He_ now derides my verse;
But who, save me, will fret to find
The editor has changed his mind,--
He can’t have got a worse.
TO PEACE.
WRITTEN ON THE NIGHT OF MY MISTRESS’S GRAND ROUT.
Oh Peace! oh come with me and dwell--
But stop, for there’s the bell.
Oh Peace! for thee I go and sit in churches,
On Wednesday, when there’s very few
In loft or pew--
Another ring, the tarts are come from Birch’s.
Oh Peace! for thee I have avoided marriage--
Hush! there’s a carriage.
Oh Peace! thou art the best of earthly goods--
The five Miss Woods.
Oh Peace! thou art the Goddess I adore--
There come some more.
Oh Peace! thou child of solitude and quiet--
That’s Lord Drum’s footman, for he loves a riot.
Oh Peace!
Knocks will not cease.
Oh Peace! thou wert for human comfort plann’d--
That’s Weippert’s band.
Oh Peace! now glad I welcome thy approaches--
I hear the sound of coaches.
Oh Peace! oh Peace!--another carriage stops--
It’s early for the Blenkinsops.
Oh Peace! with thee I love to wander,
But wait till I have show’d up Lady Squander,
And now I’ve seen her up the stair,
Oh Peace!--but here comes Captain Hare.
Oh Peace! thou art the slumber of the mind,
Untroubled, calm and quiet, and unbroken,--
If that is Alderman Guzzle from Portsoken,
Alderman Gobble won’t be far behind;
Oh Peace! serene in worldly shyness,--
Make way there for his Serene Highness!
Oh Peace! if you do not disdain
To dwell amongst the menial train,
I have a silent place, and lone,
That you and I may call our own;
Where tumult never makes an entry--
Susan, what business have you in my pantry?
Oh Peace! but there is Major Monk,
At variance with his wife--Oh Peace!
And that great German, Vander Trunk,
And that great talker, Miss Apreece;
Oh Peace! so dear to poets’ quills--
They’re just beginning their quadrilles--
Oh Peace! our greatest renovator;--
I wonder where I put my waiter--
Oh Peace!--but here my Ode I’ll cease;
I have no peace to write of Peace.
FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER.
O Lud! O Lud! O Lud!
I mean of course that venerable town,
Mention’d in stories of renown,
Built formerly of mud;--
O Lud, I say, why didst thou e’er
Invent the office of a Mayor,
An office that no useful purpose crowns,
But to set Aldermen against each other,
That should be Brother unto Brother,--
Sisters at least, by virtue of their gowns?
But still if one must have a Mayor
To fill the Civic chair,
O Lud, I say,
Was there no better day
To fix on, than November Ninth so shivery
And dull for showing off the Livery’s livery?
Dimming, alas!
The Brazier’s brass,
Soiling th’ Embroiderers and all the Saddlers,
Sopping the Furriers,
Draggling the Curriers,
And making Merchant Tailors dirty paddlers:
Drenching the Skinners’ Company to the skin,
Making the crusty Vintner chiller,
And turning the Distiller
To cold without instead of warm within;--
Spoiling the bran-new beavers
Of Wax-chandlers and Weavers,
Plastering the Plasterers and spotting Mercers,
Hearty November-cursers--
And showing Cordwainers and dapper Drapers
Sadly in want of brushes and of scrapers;
Making the Grocer’s company not fit
For Company a bit;
Dying the Dyers with a dingy flood,
Daubing incorporated Bakers,
And leading the Patten-makers,
Over their very pattens in the mud,--
O Lud! O Lud! O Lud!
“This is a sorry sight,”
To quote Macbeth--but oh, it grieves me quite
To see your Wives and Daughters in their plumes--
White plumes not white--
Sitting at open windows catching rheums,
Not “Angels ever bright and fair,”
But angels ever brown and sallow,
With eyes--you cannot see above one pair,
For city clouds of black and yellow--
And artificial flowers, rose, leaf, and bud,
Such sable lilies
And grim daffodilies
Drooping, but not for drought, O Lud! O Lud!
I may as well, while I’m inclined,
Just go through all the faults I find:
O Lud! then, with a bitter air, say June,
Could’st thou not find a better tune
To sound with trumpets, and with drums,
Than “See the Conquering Hero comes,”
When he who comes ne’er dealt in blood?
Thy May’r is not a War Horse, Lud,
That ever charged on Turk or Tartar,
And yet upon a march you strike
That treats him like--
A little French if I may martyr--
Lewis Cart-Horse or Henry Carter!
O Lud! I say
Do change your day
To some time when your Show can really show;
When silk can seem like silk, and gold can glow.
Look at your Sweepers, how they shine in May
Have it when there’s a sun to gild the coach,
And sparkle in tiara--bracelet--brooch--
Diamond--or paste--of sister, mother, daughter;
When grandeur really may be grand--
But if thy Pageant’s thus obscured by land--
O Lud! it’s ten times worse upon the water!
Suppose, O Lud, to show its plan,
I call, like Blue Beard’s wife, to sister Anne,
Who’s gone to Beaufort Wharf with niece and aunt
To see what she can see--and what she can’t;
Chewing a saffron bun by way of cud,
To keep the fog out of a tender lung,
While perch’d in a verandah nicely hung
Over a margin of thy own black mud,
O Lud!
Now Sister Anne, I call to thee,
Look out and see:
Of course about the bridge you view them rally
And sally,
With many a wherry, sculler, punt, and cutter;
The Fishmongers’ grand boat, but not for butter,
The Goldsmiths’ glorious galley,--
Of course you see the Lord Mayor’s coach aquatic,
With silken banners that the breezes fan,
In gold all glowing,
And men in scarlet rowing,
Like Doge of Venice to the Adriatic;
Of course you see all this, O Sister Anne?
“No, I see no such thing!
I only see the edge of Beaufort Wharf,
With two coal lighters fasten’d to a ring:
And, dim as ghosts,
Two little boys are jumping over posts;
And something farther off,
That’s rather like the shadow of a dog,
And all beyond is fog.
If there be any thing so fine and bright,
To see it I must see by second sight.
Call this a Show? It is not worth a pin!
I see no barges row,
No banners blow;
The show is merely a gallanty-show,
Without a lamp or any candle in.”
But sister Anne, my dear,
Although you cannot see, you still may hear?
Of course you hear, I’m very sure of that,
The “Water parted from the Sea” in C,
Or “Where the Bee sucks,” set in B;
Or Huntsman’s chorus from the Freyschutz frightful,
Or Handel’s Water Music in A flat.
Oh music from the water comes delightful!
It sounds as no where else it can:
You hear it first,
In some rich burst,
Then faintly sighing,
Tenderly dying
Away upon the breezes, Sister Anne.
“There is no breeze to die on;
And all their drums and trumpets, flutes and harps,
Could never cut their way with ev’n three sharps
Through such a fog as this, you may rely on.
I think, but am not sure, I hear a hum,
Like a very muffled double drum,
And then a something faintly shrill,
Like Bartlemy Fair’s old buz at Pentonville.
And now and then hear a pop,
As if from Pedley’s Soda Water shop.
I’m almost ill with the strong scent of mud,
And, not to mention sneezing,
My cough is, more than usual, teasing;
I really fear that I have chill’d my blood,
O Lud! O Lud! O Lud! O Lud! O Lud!”
ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE.
BY DORCAS DOVE.
And is it thus ye welcome Peace,
From Mouths of forty-pounding Bores?
Oh cease, exploding Cannons, cease!
Lest Peace, affrighted, shun our shores!
Not so the quiet Queen should come;
But like a Nurse to still our Fears,
With Shoes of List, demurely dumb,
And Wool or Cotton in her Ears!
She asks for no triumphal Arch;
No Steeples for their ropy Tongues;
Down, Drumsticks, down, She needs no March,
Or blasted Trumps from brazen Lungs.
She wants no Noise of mobbing Throats
To tell that She is drawing nigh:
Why this Parade of scarlet Coats,
When War has closed his bloodshot Eye?
Returning to Domestic Loves,
When War has ceased with all its Ills,
Captains should come like sucking Doves,
With Olive Branches in their Bills.
No need there is of vulgar Shout,
Bells, Cannons, Trumpets, Fife, and Drum,
And Soldiers marching all about,
To let Us know that Peace is come.
Oh mild should be the Signs and meek,
Sweet Peace’s Advent to proclaim!
Silence her noiseless Foot should speak,
And Echo should repeat the same.
Lo! where the Soldier walks, alas!
With Scars received on Foreign Grounds;
Shall we consume in Coloured Glass
The Oil that should be pour’d in Wounds?
The bleeding Gaps of War to close,
Will whizzing Rocket-Flight avail?
Will Squibs enliven Orphans’ Woes?
Or Crackers cheer the Widow’s Tale?
TO MR. ISAAK WALTON,
AT MR. MAJOR’S THE BOOKSELLER’S IN FLEET STREET.
Mr. Walton, it’s harsh to say it, but as a Parent I can’t help wishing
You’d been hung before you publish’d your book, to set all the young people a
fishing!
There’s my Robert, the trouble I’ve had with him it surpasses a mortal’s bearing,
And all thro’ those devilish angling works--the Lord forgive me for swearing!
I thought he were took with the Morbus one day, I did with his nasty angle!
For “oh dear,” says he, and burst out in a cry, “oh my gut is all got of a tangle!”
It’s a shame to teach a young boy such words--whose blood wouldn’t chill in their
veins
To hear him, as I overheard him one day, a-talking of blowing out brains?
And didn’t I quarrel with Sally the cook, and a precious scolding I give her,
“How dare you,” says I, “for to stench the whole house by keeping that stinking liver?”
Twas enough to breed a fever, it was! they smelt it next door at the Bagots’,--
But it wasn’t breeding no fever--not it! ’twas my son a breeding of maggots!
I declare that I couldn’t touch meat for a week, for it all seemed tainting and
going,
And after turning my stomach so, they turned to blueflies, all buzzing and blowing;
Boys are nasty enough, goodness knows, of themselves, without putting live things
in their craniums;
Well, what next? but he pots a whole cargo of worms along with my choice geraniums.
And another fine trick, tho’ it wasn’t found out, till the housemaid had given us warning,
He fished at the golden fish in the bowl, before we were up and down in the morning.
I’m sure it was lucky for Ellen, poor thing, that she’d got so attentive a lover,
As bring her fresh fish when the others deceas’d, which they did a dozen times over!
Then a whole new loaf was short! for I know, of course, when our bread goes faster,--
And I made a stir with the bill in my hand, and the man was sent off by his
master;
But, oh dear, I thought I should sink thro’ the earth, with the weight of my own reproaches,
For my own pretty son had made away with the loaf, to make pastry to feed the roaches!
I vow I’ve suffered a martyrdom--with all sorts of frights and terrors surrounded!
For I never saw him go out of the doors but I thought he’d come home to be
drownded.
And, sure enough, I set out one fine Monday to visit my married daughter,
And there he was standing at Sadler’s Wells, a-performing with real water,
It’s well he was off on the further side, for I’d have brain’d him else with
my patten,
For I thought he was safe at school, the young wretch! a studying Greek and
Latin,
And my ridicule basket he had got on his back, to carry his fishes and gentles;
With a belt I knew he’d made from the belt of his father’s regimentals--
Well, I poked his rods and lines in the fire, and his father gave him a birching
,
But he’d gone too far to be easy cured of his love for chubbing and perching.
One night he never came home to tea, and altho’ it was dark and dripping,
His father set off to Wapping, poor man! for the boy had a turn for shipping;
As for me I set up, and I sobbed and I cried for all the world like a babby,
Till at twelve o’clock he rewards my fears with two gudging from Waltham Abbey!
And a pretty sore throat and fever he caught, that brought me a fortnight’s hard
nussing,
Till I thought I should go to my grey-hair’d grave, worn out with the fretting and fussing;
But at last he was cur’d, and we did have hopes that the fishing was cured as well,
But no such luck! not a week went by before we’d have another such spell.
Tho’ he never had got a penny to spend, for such was our strict intentions,
Yet he was soon set up in tackle agin, for all boys have such quick inventions:
And I lost my Lady’s Own Pocket Book, in spite of all my hunting and poking,
Till I found it chuck full of tackles and hooks, and besides it had got a
good soaking.
Then one Friday morning, I gets a summoning note from a sort of a law attorney,
For the boy had been trespassing people’s grounds while his father was gone a
journey,
And I had to go and hush it all up by myself, in an office at Hatton Garden;
And to pay for the damage he’d done, to boot, and to beg some strange gentleman’s pardon.
And wasn’t he once fished out himself, and a man had to dive to find him,
And I saw him brought home with my motherly eyes and a mob of people behind him?
Yes, it took a full hour to rub him to life--whilst I was a-screaming and raving,
And a couple of guineas it cost us besides, to reward the humane man for his saving,
And didn’t Miss Crump leave us out of her will, all along of her taking dudgeon?
At her favourite cat being chok’d, poor Puss, with a hook sow’d up in a gudgeon?
And old Brown complain’d that he pluck’d his live fowls, and not without show of reason,
For the cocks looked naked about necks and tails, and it wasn’t their moulting season;
And sure and surely, when we came to enquire, there was cause for their screeching
and cackles,
For the mischief confess’d he had picked them a bit, for I think he called them the hackles.
A pretty tussle we had about that! but as if it wasn’t picking enough,
When the winter comes on, to the muff-box I goes, just to shake out my sable muff--
“O mercy!” thinks I, “there’s the moth in the house!” for the fur was all gone
in patches;
And then at Ellen’s chinchilly I look, and its state of destruction just matches--
But it wasn’t no moth, Mr. Walton, but flies--sham flies to go trolling and
trouting,
For his father’s great coat was all safe and sound, and that first set me a-doubting.
A plague, say I, on all rods and lines, and on young or old watery danglers!
And after all that you’ll talk of such stuff as no harm in the world about anglers!
And when all is done, all our worry and fuss, why, we’ve never had nothing worth dishing;
So you see, Mister Walton, no good comes at last of your famous book about fishing.
As for Robert’s, I burnt it a twelvemonth ago; but it turned up too late to be
lucky,
For he’d got it by heart, as I found to the cost of
Your servant,
JANE ELIZABETH STUCKEY.
TO MARY HOUSEMAID.
ON VALENTINE’S DAY.
Mary, you know I’ve no love-nonsense,
And, though I pen on such a day,
I don’t mean flirting, on my conscience,
Or writing in the courting way.
Though Beauty hasn’t form’d your feature,
It saves you, p’rhaps, from being vain,
And many a poor unhappy creature
May wish that she was half as plain.
Your virtues would not rise an inch,
Although your shape was two foot taller,
And wisely you let others pinch
Great waists and feet to make them smaller.
You never try to spare your hands
From getting red by household duty,
But, doing all that it commands,
Their coarseness is a moral beauty.
Let Susan flourish her fair arms
And at your old legs sneer and scoff,
But let her laugh, for you have charms
That nobody knows nothing of.
TO A BAD RIDER.
I.
Why, Mr. Rider, why
Your nag so ill indorse, man?
To make observers cry,
You’re mounted, but no horseman?
II.
With elbows out so far,
This thought you can’t debar me--
Though no Dragoon--Hussar--
You’re surely of the army!
III.
I hope to turn M.P.
You have not any notion,
So awkward you would be
At “seconding a motion!”
TO A CRITIC.
O Cruel One! How littel dost thou knowe
How manye poetes with Unhappyenesse
Thou mayest have slaine; are they beganne to blowe
Like to yonge Buddes in theyre firste sappyenesse!
Even as Pinkes from littel Pipinges growe
Great Poetes yet maye come of singinges smalle,
Which, if an hungrede Worme doth gnawe belowe,
Fold up theyre strypëd leaves, and dye withalle.
Alake, that pleasaunt Flowre must fayde and falle
Because a Grubbe hath ete into yts Hede,--
That els had growne soe fayre and eke soe talle
To-wardes the Heaven, and opened forthe and sprede
Its blossomes to the Sunne for Menne to rede
In soe brighte hues of Lovelinesse indeede!
THE SWEETS OF YOUTH.
“Sweets to the sweet--farewell.”--HAMLET.
Time was I liked a cheesecake well enough--
All human children have a sweetish taste;
I used to revel in a pie, or puff;
Or tart--we all were _Tartars_ in our youth
To meet with jam or jelly was good luck,
All candies most complacently I crumped,
A stick of liquorice was good to suck,
And sugar was as often liked as lumped!
On treacle’s “linkèd sweetness long drawn out,”
Or honey I could feast like any fly;
I thrilled when lollipops were hawked about;
How pleased to compass hard-bake or bull’s-eye;
How charmed if Fortune in my power cast
Elecampane--but that campaign is past.
TO HENRIETTA,[8]
ON HER DEPARTURE FOR CALAIS.
When little people go abroad, wherever they may roam,
They will not just be treated as they used to be at home;
So take a few promiscuous hints, to warn you in advance,
Of how a little English girl will perhaps be served in France.
Of course you will be Frenchified; and first, it’s my belief,
They’ll dress you in their foreign style as à-la-mode as beef,
With a little row of beehives, as a border to your frock,
And a pair of frilly trousers, like a little bantam cock.
But first they’ll seize your bundle (if you have one) in a crack,
And tie it with a tape by way of bustle on your back;
And make your waist so high or low, your shape will be a riddle,
For anyhow you’ll never have your middle in the middle.