Fear no unlicensed entry,
Heed no bombastic talk,
While guards the British Sentry
Pall Mall and Birdcage Walk.
Let European thunders
Occasion no alarms,
Though diplomatic blunders
May cause a cry "To arms!"
Sleep on, ye pale civilians;
All thunder-clouds defy:
On Europe's countless millions
The Sentry keeps his eye!
Should foreign-born rapscallions
In London dare to show
Their overgrown battalions,
Be sure I'll let you know.
Should Russians or Norwegians
Pollute our favoured clime
With rough barbaric legions,
I'll mention it in time.
So sleep in peace, civilians,
The Continent defy;
While on its countless millions
The Sentry keeps his eye!
THE CUNNING WOMAN
On all Arcadia's sunny plain,
On all Arcadia's hill,
None were so blithe as Bill and Jane,
So blithe as Jane and Bill.
No social earthquake e'er occurred
To rack their common mind:
To them a Panic was a word—
A Crisis, empty wind.
No Stock Exchange disturbed the lad
With overwhelming shocks—
Bill ploughed with all the shares he had,
Jane planted all her stocks.
And learn in what a simple way
Their pleasures they enhanced—
Jane danced like any lamb all day,
Bill piped as well as danced.
Surrounded by a twittling crew,
Of linnet, lark, and thrush,
Bill treated his young lady to
This sentimental gush:
"Oh, Jane, how true I am to you!
How true you are to me!
And how we woo, and how we coo!
So fond a pair are we!
"To think, dear Jane, that anyways,
Your chiefest end and aim
Is, one of these fine summer days,
To bear my humble name!"
Quoth Jane, "Well, as you put the case,
I'm true enough, no doubt,
But then, you see, in this here place
There's none to cut you out.
"But, oh! if anybody came—
A Lord or any such—
I do not think your humble name
Would fascinate me much.
"For though your mates, you often boast
You distance out-and-out;
Still, in the abstract, you're a most
Uncompromising lout!"
Poor Bill, he gave a heavy sigh,
He tried in vain to speak—
A fat tear started to each eye
And coursed adown each cheek.
For, oh! right well in truth he knew
That very self-same day,
The Lord de Jacob Pillaloo
Was coming there to stay!
The Lord de Jacob Pillaloo
All proper maidens shun—
He loves all women, it is true,
But never marries one.
Now Jane, with all her mad self-will,
Was no coquette—oh no!
She really loved her faithful Bill,
And thus she tuned her woe:
"Oh, willow, willow, o'er the lea!
And willow once again!
The Peer will fall in love with me!
Why wasn't I made plain?"
A cunning woman lived hard by,
A sorceressing dame,
MacCatacomb de Salmon-Eye
Was her uncommon name.
To her good Jane, with kindly yearn
For Bill's increasing pain,
Repaired in secrecy to learn
How best to make her plain.
"Oh, Jane," the worthy woman said,
"This mystic phial keep,
And rub its liquor in your head
Before you go to sleep.
"When you awake next day, I trow,
You'll look in form and hue
To others just as you do now—But
not to Pillaloo!
"When you approach him, you will find
He'll think you coarse—unkempt—
And rudely bid you get behind,
With undisguised contempt."
The Lord de Pillaloo arrived
With his expensive train,
And when in state serenely hived,
He sent for Bill and Jane.
"Oh, spare her, Lord of Pillaloo!
(Said Bill) if wed you be,
There's anything I'd rather do
Than flirt with Lady P."
The Lord he gazed in Jenny's eyes,
He looked her through and through:
The cunning woman's prophecies
Were clearly coming true.
Lord Pillaloo, the Rustic's Bane
(Bad person he, and proud),
He laughed Ha! ha! at pretty Jane,
And sneered at her aloud!
He bade her get behind him then,
And seek her mother's stye—
Yet to her native countrymen
She was as fair as aye!
MacCatacomb, continue green!
Grow, Salmon-Eye, in might,
Except for you, there might have been
The deuce's own delight!
THE LOVE-SICK BOY
When first my old, old love I knew,
My bosom welled with joy;
My riches at her feet I threw;
I was a love-sick boy!
No terms seemed too extravagant
Upon her to employ—
I used to mope, and sigh, and pant,
Just like a love-sick boy!
But joy incessant palls the sense;
And love unchanged will cloy,
And she became a bore intense
Unto her love-sick boy?
With fitful glimmer burnt my flame.
And I grew cold and coy,
At last, one morning, I became
Another's love-sick boy!
PHRENOLOGY
"Come, collar this bad man—
Around the throat he knotted me
Till I to choke began—
In point of fact, garrotted me!"
So spake Sir Herbert White
To James, Policeman Thirty-two—
All ruffled with his fight
Sir Herbert was, and dirty too.
Policeman nothing said
(Though he had much to say on it),
But from the bad man's head
He took the cap that lay on it.
"No, great Sir Herbert White—
Impossible to take him up.
This man is honest quite—
Wherever did you rake him up?
"For Burglars, Thieves, and Co.,
Indeed I'm no apologist;
But I, some years ago,
Assisted a Phrenologist.
"Observe his various bumps,
His head as I uncover it;
His morals lie in lumps
All round about and over it."
"Now take him," said Sir White,
"Or you will soon be rueing it;
Bless me! I must be right,—
I caught the fellow doing it!"
Policeman calmly smiled,
"Indeed you are mistaken, sir,
You're agitated—riled—
And very badly shaken, sir.
"Sit down, and I'll explain
My system of Phrenology,
A second, please, remain"—
(A second is horology).
Policeman left his beat—
(The Bart., no longer furious,
Sat down upon a seat,
Observing, "This is curious!")
"Oh, surely here are signs
Should soften your rigidity,
This gentleman combines
Politeness with timidity.
"Of Shyness here's a lump—
A hole for Animosity—
And like my fist his bump
Of Generenerosity.
"Just here the bump appears
Of Innocent Hilarity,
And just behind his ear
Are Faith, and Hope, and Charity.
"He of true Christian ways
As bright example sent us is—
This maxim he obeys,
'Sorte tuâ contentus sis.'
"There, let him go his ways,
He needs no stern admonishing."
The Bart., in blank amaze,
Exclaimed, "This is astonishing!
"I must have made a mull,
This matter I've been blind in it:
Examine, please, my skull,
And tell me what you find in it."
Policeman looked, and said,
With unimpaired urbanity,
"Sir Herbert, you've a head
That teems with inhumanity.
"Here's Murder, Envy, Strife
(Propensity to kill any),
And Lies as large as life,
And heaps of Social Villainy:
"Here's Love of Bran New Clothes,
Embezzling—Arson—Deism—
A taste for Slang and Oaths,
And Fraudulent Trusteeism.
"Here's Love of Groundless Charge—
Here's Malice, too, and Trickery,
Unusually large
Your bump of Pocket-Pickery——"
"Stop!" said the Bart., "my cup
Is full—I'm worse than him in all—
Policeman, take me up—
No doubt I am some criminal!"
That Policeman's scorn grew large
(Phrenology had nettled it),
He took that Bart. in charge—
I don't know how they settled it.
POETRY EVERYWHERE
What time the poet hath hymned
The writhing maid, lithe-limbed,
Quivering on amaranthine asphodel,
How can he paint her woes,
Knowing, as well he knows,
That all can be set right with calomel?
When from the poet's plinth
The amorous colocynth
Yearns for the aloe, faint with rapturous thrills,
How can he hymn their throes
Knowing, as well he knows,
That they are only uncompounded pills?
Is it, and can it be,
Nature hath this decree,
Nothing poetic in the world shall dwell?
Or that in all her works
Something poetic lurks,
Even in colocynth and calomel?
THE FAIRY CURATE
Once a fairy
Light and airy
Married with a mortal;
Men, however,
Never, never
Pass the fairy portal.
Slyly stealing,
She to Ealing
Made a daily journey;
There she found him,
Clients round him
(He was an attorney).
Long they tarried,
Then they married.
When the ceremony
Once was ended,
Off they wended
On their moon of honey.
Twelvemonth, maybe,
Saw a baby
(Friends performed an orgie)
Much they prized him,
And baptized him
By the name of Georgie.
Georgie grew up;
Then he flew up
To his fairy mother.
Happy meeting
Pleasant greeting—
Kissing one another.
"Choose a calling
Most enthralling,
I sincerely urge ye."
"Mother," said he
(Rev'rence made he),
"I would join the clergy"
"Give permission
In addition—
Pa will let me do it:
There's a living
In his giving,
He'll appoint me to it.
Dreams of coff'ring
Easter off'ring,
Tithe and rent and pew-rate,
So inflame me
(Do not blame me),
That I'll be a curate."
She, with pleasure,
Said, "My treasure,
Tis my wish precisely.
Do your duty,
There's a beauty;
You have chosen wisely.
Tell your father
I would rather
As a churchman rank you.
You, in clover,
I'll watch over."
Georgie said, "Oh, thank you!"
Georgie scudded,
Went and studied,
Made all preparations,
And with credit
(Though he said it)
Passed examinations.
(Do not quarrel)
With him, moral
Scrupulous digestions—
But his mother,
And no other,
Answered all the questions.
Time proceeded;
Little needed
Georgie admonition:
He, elated,
Vindicated
Clergyman's position.
People round him
Always found him
Plain and unpretending;
Kindly teaching,
Plainly preaching—
All his money lending.
So the fairy,
Wise and wary,
Felt no sorrow rising—
No occasion
For persuasion,
Warning, or advising.
He, resuming
Fairy pluming
(That's not English, is it?)
Oft would fly up,
To the sky up,
Pay mamma a visit.
Time progressing,
Georgie's blessing
Grew more Ritualistic—
Popish scandals,
Tonsures—sandals—
Genuflections mystic;
Gushing meetings—
Bosom-beatings—
Heavenly ecstatics—
Broidered spencers—
Copes and censers—
Rochets and dalmatics.
This quandary
Vexed the fairy—
Flew she down to Ealing.
"Georgie, stop it!
Pray you, drop it;
Hark to my appealing:
To this foolish
Papal rule-ish
Twaddle put an ending;
This a swerve is
From our Service
Plain and unpretending."
He, replying,
Answered, sighing,
Hawing, hemming, humming,
"It's a pity—
They're so pritty;
Yet in mode becoming,
Mother tender,
I'll surrender—
I'll be unaffected—"
Then his Bishop
Into his shop
Entered unexpected:
"Who is this, sir,—
Ballet miss, sir?"
Said the Bishop coldly.
"'Tis my mother,
And no other,"
Georgie answered boldly.
"Go along, sir!
You are wrong, sir,
You have years in plenty;
While this hussy
(Gracious mussy!)
Isn't two-and-twenty!"
(Fairies clever
Never, never
Grow in visage older;
And the fairy,
All unwary,
Leant upon his shoulder!)
Bishop grieved him,
Disbelieved him,
George the point grew warm on;
Changed religion,
Like a pigeon,[11]
And became a Mormon.
[11] "Like a Bird."
HE LOVES!
He loves! If in the bygone years
Thine eyes have ever shed
Tears—bitter, unavailing tears,
For one untimely dead—
If in the eventide of life
Sad thoughts of her arise,
Then let the memory of thy wife
Plead for my boy—he dies!
He dies! If fondly laid aside
In some old cabinet,
Memorials of thy long-dead bride
Lie, dearly treasured yet,
Then let her hallowed bridal dress—
Her little dainty gloves—
Her withered flowers—her faded tress—
Plead for my boy—he loves!
THE WAY OF WOOING
A maiden sat at her window wide,
Pretty enough for a prince's bride,
Yet nobody came to claim her.
She sat like a beautiful picture there,
With pretty bluebells and roses fair,
And jasmine leaves to frame her.
And why she sat there nobody knows;
But thus she sang as she plucked a rose,
The leaves around her strewing:
"I've time to lose and power to choose;
'Tis not so much the gallant who woos
As the gallant's way of wooing!"
A lover came riding by awhile,
A wealthy lover was he, whose smile
Some maids would value greatly—
A formal lover, who bowed and bent,
With many a high-flown compliment,
And cold demeanour stately.
"You've still," said she to her suitor stern,
"The 'prentice-work of your craft to learn.
If thus you come a-cooing.
I've time to lose and power to choose;
'Tis not so much the gallant who woos
As the gallant's way of wooing!"
A second lover came ambling by—
A timid lad with a frightened eye
And a colour mantling highly.
He muttered the errand on which he'd come,
Then only chuckled and bit his thumb,
And simpered, simpered shyly.
"No," said the maiden, "go your way,
You dare but think what a man would say,
Yet dare come a-suing!
I've time to lose and power to choose;
'Tis not so much the gallant who woos
As the gallant's way of wooing!"
A third rode up at a startling pace—
A suitor poor, with a homely face—
No doubts appeared to bind him.
He kissed her lips and he pressed her waist,
And off he rode with the maiden, placed
On a pillion safe behind him.
And she heard the suitor bold confide
This golden hint to the priest who tied
The knot there's no undoing:
"With pretty young maidens who can choose
"Tis not so much the gallant who woos
As the gallant's way of wooing!"
TRUE DIFFIDENCE
My boy, you may take it from me,
That of all the afflictions accurst
With which a man's saddled
And hampered and addled,
A diffident nature's the worst.
Though clever as clever can be—
A Crichton of early romance—
You must stir it and stump it,
And blow your own trumpet,
Or, trust me, you haven't a chance.
Now take, for example, my case:
I've a bright intellectual brain—-
In all London city
There's no one so witty—
I've thought so again and again.
I've a highly intelligent face—
My features can not be denied—
But, whatever I try, sir,
I fail in—and why, sir?
I'm modesty personified!
As a poet, I'm tender and quaint—
I've passion and fervour and grace—
From Ovid and Horace
To Swinburne and Morris,
They all of them take a back place.
Then I sing and I play and I paint;
Though none are accomplished as I
To say so were treason:
You ask me the reason?
I'm diffident, modest, and shy!
HONGREE AND MAHRY
A RICHARDSONIAN MELODRAMA
The sun was setting in its wonted west,
When Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
Met Mahry Daubigny, the Village Rose,
Under the Wizard's Oak—old trysting-place
Of those who loved in rosy Aquitaine.
They thought themselves unwatched, but they were not
For Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
Found in Lieutenant-Colonel Jooles Dubosc
A rival, envious and unscrupulous,
Who thought it not foul scorn to dog his steps,
And listen, unperceived, to all that passed
Between the simple little Village Rose
And Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores.
A clumsy barrack-bully was Dubosc,
Quite unfamiliar with the well-bred tact
That actuates a proper gentleman
In dealing with a girl of humble rank.
You'll understand his coarseness when I say
He would have married Mahry Daubigny,
And dragged the unsophisticated girl
Into the whirl of fashionable life,
For which her singularly rustic ways,
Her breeding (moral, but extremely rude),
Her language (chaste, but ungrammatical),
Would absolutely have unfitted her.
No such intention lurked within the breast
Of Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores!
Contemporary with the incident
Related in our opening paragraph,
Was that sad war 'twixt Gallia and ourselves
That followed on the treaty signed at Troyes;
And so Lieutenant-Colonel Jooles Dubosc
(Brave soldier, he, with all his faults of style)
And Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
Were sent by Charles of France against the lines
Of our Sixth Henry (Fourteen twenty-nine),
To drive his legions out of Aquitaine.
When Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
Returned (suspecting nothing) to his camp,
After his meeting with the Village Rose,
He found inside his barrack letter-box
A note from the commanding-officer,
Requiring his attendance at headquarters.
He went, and found Lieutenant-Colonel Jooles.
"Young Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
This night we shall attack the English camp:
Be the 'forlorn hope' yours—you'll lead it sir,
And lead it too with credit, I've no doubt"
(These last words with a cruelly obvious sneer).
"As every soul must certainly be killed
(For you are twenty 'gainst two thousand men),
It is not likely that you will return;
But what of that? you'll have the benefit
Of knowing that you die a soldier's death."
Obedience was young Hongree's strongest point,
But he imagined that he only owed
Allegiance to his Mahry and his King.
"If Mahry bade me lead these fated men,
I'd lead them—but I do not think she would.
If Charles, my King, said, 'Go, my son, and die,'
I'd go, of course—my duty would be clear.
But Mahry is in bed asleep (I hope),
And Charles, my King, a hundred leagues from this,
As for Lieutenant-Colonel Jooles Dubosc,
How know I that our monarch would approve
The order he has given me to-night?
My King I've sworn in all things to obey—
I'll only take my orders from my King!"
Thus Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
Interpreted the terms of his commission.
And Hongree, who was wise as he was good,
Disguised himself that night in ample cloak,
Round flapping hat, and visor mask of black,
And made, unnoticed, for the English camp.
He passed the unsuspecting sentinels
(Who little thought a man in this disguise
Could be a proper object of suspicion),
And ere the curfew-bell had boomed "lights out,"
He found in audience Bedford's haughty Duke.
"Your Grace," he said, "start not—be not alarmed,
Although a Frenchman stands before your eyes.
I'm Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores.
My colonel will attack your camp to-night,
And orders me to lead the hope forlorn.
Now I am sure our excellent King Charles
Would not approve of this; but he's away
A hundred leagues, and rather more than that.
So, utterly devoted to my King,
Blinded by my attachment to the throne,
And having but its interest at heart,
I feel it is my duty to disclose
All schemes that emanate from Colonel Jooles,
If I believe that they are not the kind
Of schemes that our good monarch could approve."
"But how," said Bedford's Duke, "do you propose
That we should overthrow your colonel's scheme?"
And Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
Replied at once with never-failing tact:
"Oh, sir, I know this cursed country well.
Entrust yourself and all your host to me;
I'll lead you safely by a secret path
Into the heart of Colonel Jooles' array,
And you can then attack them unprepared,
And slay my fellow-countrymen unarmed."
The thing was done. The Duke of Bedford gave
The order, and two thousand fighting-men
Crept silently into the Gallic camp,
And killed the Frenchmen as they lay asleep;
And Bedford's haughty Duke slew Colonel Jooles,
And married Mahry, pride of Aquitaine,
To Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores.
THE TANGLED SKEIN
Try we life-long, we can never
Straighten out life's tangled skein,
Why should we, in vain endeavour,
Guess and guess and guess again?
Life's a pudding full of plums,
Care's a canker that benumbs,
Wherefore waste our elocution
On impossible solution?
Life's a pleasant institution,
Let us take it as it comes!
Set aside the dull enigma,
We shall guess it all too soon;
Failure brings no kind of stigma—
Dance we to another tune!
String the lyre and fill the cup,
Lest on sorrow we should sup;
Hop and skip to Fancy's fiddle,
Hands across and down the middle—
Life's perhaps the only riddle
That we shrink from giving up!