“Gentle, modest little flower,
Sweet epitome of May,
Love me but for half an hour,
Love me, love me, little fay.”
Sentences so fiercely flaming
In your tiny shell-like ear,
I should always be exclaiming
If I loved you, PHOEBE dear.

“Smiles that thrill from any distance
Shed upon me while I sing!
Please ecstaticize existence,
Love me, oh, thou fairy thing!”
Words like these, outpouring sadly
You’d perpetually hear,
If I loved you fondly, madly;—
But I do not, PHOEBE dear.

Baines Carew, Gentleman

Of all the good attorneys who
Have placed their names upon the roll,
But few could equal BAINES CAREW
For tender-heartedness and soul.

Whene’er he heard a tale of woe
From client A or client B,
His grief would overcome him so
He’d scarce have strength to take his fee.

It laid him up for many days,
When duty led him to distrain,
And serving writs, although it pays,
Gave him excruciating pain.

He made out costs, distrained for rent,
Foreclosed and sued, with moistened eye—
No bill of costs could represent
The value of such sympathy.

No charges can approximate
The worth of sympathy with woe;—
Although I think I ought to state
He did his best to make them so.

Of all the many clients who
Had mustered round his legal flag,
No single client of the crew
Was half so dear as CAPTAIN BAGG.

Now, CAPTAIN BAGG had bowed him to
A heavy matrimonial yoke—
His wifey had of faults a few—
She never could resist a joke.

Her chaff at first he meekly bore,
Till unendurable it grew.
“To stop this persecution sore
I will consult my friend CAREW.

“And when CAREW’S advice I’ve got,
Divorce a mensâ I shall try.”
(A legal separation—not
A vinculo conjugii.)

“Oh, BAINES CAREW, my woe I’ve kept
A secret hitherto, you know;”—
(And BAINES CAREW, ESQUIRE, he wept
To hear that BAGG had any woe.)

“My case, indeed, is passing sad.
My wife—whom I considered true—
With brutal conduct drives me mad.”
“I am appalled,” said BAINES CAREW.

“What! sound the matrimonial knell
Of worthy people such as these!
Why was I an attorney? Well—
Go on to the saevitia, please.”

“Domestic bliss has proved my bane,—
A harder case you never heard,
My wife (in other matters sane)
Pretends that I’m a Dicky bird!

“She makes me sing, ‘Too-whit, too-wee!’
And stand upon a rounded stick,
And always introduces me
To every one as ‘Pretty Dick’!”

“Oh, dear,” said weeping BAINES CAREW,
“This is the direst case I know.”
“I’m grieved,” said BAGG, “at paining you—
“To COBB and POLTHERTHWAITE I’ll go—

“To COBB’S cold, calculating ear,
My gruesome sorrows I’ll impart”—
“No; stop,” said BAINES, “I’ll dry my tear,
And steel my sympathetic heart.”

“She makes me perch upon a tree,
Rewarding me with ‘Sweety—nice!’
And threatens to exhibit me
With four or five performing mice.”

“Restrain my tears I wish I could”
(Said BAINES), “I don’t know what to do.”
Said CAPTAIN BAGG, “You’re very good.”
“Oh, not at all,” said BAINES CAREW.

“She makes me fire a gun,” said BAGG;
“And, at a preconcerted word,
Climb up a ladder with a flag,
Like any street performing bird.

“She places sugar in my way—
In public places calls me ‘Sweet!’
She gives me groundsel every day,
And hard canary-seed to eat.”

“Oh, woe! oh, sad! oh, dire to tell!”
(Said BAINES). “Be good enough to stop.”
And senseless on the floor he fell,
With unpremeditated flop!

Said CAPTAIN BAGG, “Well, really I
Am grieved to think it pains you so.
I thank you for your sympathy;
But, hang it!—come—I say, you know!”

But BAINES lay flat upon the floor,
Convulsed with sympathetic sob;—
The Captain toddled off next door,
And gave the case to MR. COBB.

Thomas Winterbottom Hance

In all the towns and cities fair
On Merry England’s broad expanse,
No swordsman ever could compare
With THOMAS WINTERBOTTOM HANCE.

The dauntless lad could fairly hew
A silken handkerchief in twain,
Divide a leg of mutton too—
And this without unwholesome strain.

On whole half-sheep, with cunning trick,
His sabre sometimes he’d employ—
No bar of lead, however thick,
Had terrors for the stalwart boy.

At Dover daily he’d prepare
To hew and slash, behind, before—
Which aggravated MONSIEUR PIERRE,
Who watched him from the Calais shore.

It caused good PIERRE to swear and dance,
The sight annoyed and vexed him so;
He was the bravest man in France—
He said so, and he ought to know.

“Regardez donc, ce cochon gros—
Ce polisson! Oh, sacré bleu!
Son sabre, son plomb, et ses gigots
Comme cela m’ennuye, enfin, mon Dieu!

“Il sait que les foulards de soie
Give no retaliating whack—
Les gigots morts n’ont pas de quoi—
Le plomb don’t ever hit you back.”

But every day the headstrong lad
Cut lead and mutton more and more;
And every day poor PIERRE, half mad,
Shrieked loud defiance from his shore.

HANCE had a mother, poor and old,
A simple, harmless village dame,
Who crowed and clapped as people told
Of WINTERBOTTOM’S rising fame.

She said, “I’ll be upon the spot
To see my TOMMY’S sabre-play;”
And so she left her leafy cot,
And walked to Dover in a day.

PIERRE had a doating mother, who
Had heard of his defiant rage;
His Ma was nearly ninety-two,
And rather dressy for her age.

At HANCE’S doings every morn,
With sheer delight his mother cried;
And MONSIEUR PIERRE’S contemptuous scorn
Filled his mamma with proper pride.

But HANCE’S powers began to fail—
His constitution was not strong—
And PIERRE, who once was stout and hale,
Grew thin from shouting all day long.

Their mothers saw them pale and wan,
Maternal anguish tore each breast,
And so they met to find a plan
To set their offsprings’ minds at rest.

Said MRS. HANCE, “Of course I shrinks
From bloodshed, ma’am, as you’re aware,
But still they’d better meet, I thinks.”
“Assurément!” said MADAME PIERRE.

A sunny spot in sunny France
Was hit upon for this affair;
The ground was picked by MRS. HANCE,
The stakes were pitched by MADAME PIERRE.

Said MRS. H., “Your work you see—
Go in, my noble boy, and win.”
“En garde, mon fils!” said MADAME P.
“Allons!” “Go on!” “En garde!” “Begin!”

(The mothers were of decent size,
Though not particularly tall;
But in the sketch that meets your eyes
I’ve been obliged to draw them small.)

Loud sneered the doughty man of France,
“Ho! ho! Ho! ho! Ha! ha! Ha! ha!
“The French for ‘Pish’” said THOMAS HANCE.
Said PIERRE, “L’Anglais, Monsieur, pour ‘Bah.’”

Said MRS. H., “Come, one! two! three!—
We’re sittin’ here to see all fair.”
“C’est magnifique!” said MADAME P.,
“Mais, parbleu! ce n’est pas la guerre!”

“Je scorn un foe si lache que vous,”
Said PIERRE, the doughty son of France.
“I fight not coward foe like you!”
Said our undaunted TOMMY HANCE.

“The French for ‘Pooh!’” our TOMMY cried.
“L’Anglais pour ‘Va!’” the Frenchman crowed.
And so, with undiminished pride,
Each went on his respective road.

The Reverend Micah Sowls

The REVEREND MICAH SOWLS,
He shouts and yells and howls,
He screams, he mouths, he bumps,
He foams, he rants, he thumps.

His armour he has buckled on, to wage
The regulation war against the Stage;
And warns his congregation all to shun
“The Presence-Chamber of the Evil One,”

The subject’s sad enough
To make him rant and puff,
And fortunately, too,
His Bishop’s in a pew.

So REVEREND MICAH claps on extra steam,
His eyes are flashing with superior gleam,
He is as energetic as can be,
For there are fatter livings in that see.

The Bishop, when it’s o’er,
Goes through the vestry door,
Where MICAH, very red,
Is mopping of his head.

“Pardon, my Lord, your SOWLS’ excessive zeal,
It is a theme on which I strongly feel.”
(The sermon somebody had sent him down
From London, at a charge of half-a-crown.)

The Bishop bowed his head,
And, acquiescing, said,
“I’ve heard your well-meant rage
Against the Modern Stage.

“A modern Theatre, as I heard you say,
Sows seeds of evil broadcast—well it may;
But let me ask you, my respected son,
Pray, have you ever ventured into one?”

“My Lord,” said MICAH, “no!
I never, never go!
What! Go and see a play?
My goodness gracious, nay!”

The worthy Bishop said, “My friend, no doubt
The Stage may be the place you make it out;
But if, my REVEREND SOWLS, you never go,
I don’t quite understand how you’re to know.”

“Well, really,” MICAH said,
“I’ve often heard and read,
But never go—do you?”
The Bishop said, “I do.”

“That proves me wrong,” said MICAH, in a trice:
“I thought it all frivolity and vice.”
The Bishop handed him a printed card;
“Go to a theatre where they play our Bard.”

The Bishop took his leave,
Rejoicing in his sleeve.
The next ensuing day
SOWLS went and heard a play.

He saw a dreary person on the stage,
Who mouthed and mugged in simulated rage,
Who growled and spluttered in a mode absurd,
And spoke an English SOWLS had never heard.

For “gaunt” was spoken “garnt,”
And “haunt” transformed to “harnt,”
And “wrath “ pronounced as “rath,”
And “death” was changed to “dath.”

For hours and hours that dismal actor walked,
And talked, and talked, and talked, and talked,
Till lethargy upon the parson crept,
And sleepy MICAH SOWLS serenely slept.

He slept away until
The farce that closed the bill
Had warned him not to stay,
And then he went away.

“I thought my gait ridiculous,” said he—
“My elocution faulty as could be;
I thought I mumbled on a matchless plan—
I had not seen our great Tragedian!

“Forgive me, if you can,
O great Tragedian!
I own it with a sigh—
You’re drearier than I!”

A Discontented Sugar Broker

A GENTLEMAN of City fame
Now claims your kind attention;
East India broking was his game,
His name I shall not mention:
No one of finely-pointed sense
Would violate a confidence,
And shall I go
And do it? No!
His name I shall not mention.

He had a trusty wife and true,
And very cosy quarters,
A manager, a boy or two,
Six clerks, and seven porters.
A broker must be doing well
(As any lunatic can tell)
Who can employ
An active boy,
Six clerks, and seven porters.

His knocker advertised no dun,
No losses made him sulky,
He had one sorrow—only one—
He was extremely bulky.
A man must be, I beg to state,
Exceptionally fortunate
Who owns his chief
And only grief
Is—being very bulky.

“This load,” he’d say, “I cannot bear;
I’m nineteen stone or twenty!
Henceforward I’ll go in for air
And exercise in plenty.”
Most people think that, should it come,
They can reduce a bulging tum
To measures fair
By taking air
And exercise in plenty.

In every weather, every day,
Dry, muddy, wet, or gritty,
He took to dancing all the way
From Brompton to the City.
You do not often get the chance
Of seeing sugar brokers dance
From their abode
In Fulham Road
Through Brompton to the City.

He braved the gay and guileless laugh
Of children with their nusses,
The loud uneducated chaff
Of clerks on omnibuses.
Against all minor things that rack
A nicely-balanced mind, I’ll back
The noisy chaff
And ill-bred laugh
Of clerks on omnibuses.

His friends, who heard his money chink,
And saw the house he rented,
And knew his wife, could never think
What made him discontented.
It never entered their pure minds
That fads are of eccentric kinds,
Nor would they own
That fat alone
Could make one discontented.

“Your riches know no kind of pause,
Your trade is fast advancing;
You dance—but not for joy, because
You weep as you are dancing.
To dance implies that man is glad,
To weep implies that man is sad;
But here are you
Who do the two—
You weep as you are dancing!”

His mania soon got noised about
And into all the papers;
His size increased beyond a doubt
For all his reckless capers:
It may seem singular to you,
But all his friends admit it true—
The more he found
His figure round,
The more he cut his capers.

His bulk increased—no matter that—
He tried the more to toss it—
He never spoke of it as “fat,”
But “adipose deposit.”
Upon my word, it seems to me
Unpardonable vanity
(And worse than that)
To call your fat
An “adipose deposit.”

At length his brawny knees gave way,
And on the carpet sinking,
Upon his shapeless back he lay
And kicked away like winking.
Instead of seeing in his state
The finger of unswerving Fate,
He laboured still
To work his will,
And kicked away like winking.

His friends, disgusted with him now,
Away in silence wended—
I hardly like to tell you how
This dreadful story ended.
The shocking sequel to impart,
I must employ the limner’s art—
If you would know,
This sketch will show
How his exertions ended.

MORAL.

I hate to preach—I hate to prate—
– I’m no fanatic croaker,
But learn contentment from the fate
Of this East India broker.
He’d everything a man of taste
Could ever want, except a waist;
And discontent
His size anent,
And bootless perseverance blind,
Completely wrecked the peace of mind
Of this East India broker.

The Pantomime “Super” To His Mask

Vast empty shell!
Impertinent, preposterous abortion!
With vacant stare,
And ragged hair,
And every feature out of all proportion!
Embodiment of echoing inanity!
Excellent type of simpering insanity!
Unwieldy, clumsy nightmare of humanity!
I ring thy knell!

To-night thou diest,
Beast that destroy’st my heaven-born identity!
Nine weeks of nights,
Before the lights,
Swamped in thine own preposterous nonentity,
I’ve been ill-treated, cursed, and thrashed diurnally,
Credited for the smile you wear externally—
I feel disposed to smash thy face, infernally,
As there thou liest!

I’ve been thy brain:
I’ve been the brain that lit thy dull concavity!
The human race
Invest my face
With thine expression of unchecked depravity,
Invested with a ghastly reciprocity,
I’ve been responsible for thy monstrosity,
I, for thy wanton, blundering ferocity—
But not again!

’T is time to toll
Thy knell, and that of follies pantomimical:
A nine weeks’ run,
And thou hast done
All thou canst do to make thyself inimical.
Adieu, embodiment of all inanity!
Excellent type of simpering insanity!
Unwieldy, clumsy nightmare of humanity!
Freed is thy soul!

(The Mask respondeth.)

Oh! master mine,
Look thou within thee, ere again ill-using me.
Art thou aware
Of nothing there
Which might abuse thee, as thou art abusing me?
A brain that mourns thine unredeemed rascality?
A soul that weeps at thy threadbare morality?
Both grieving that their individuality
Is merged in thine?

The Force Of Argument

Lord B. was a nobleman bold
Who came of illustrious stocks,
He was thirty or forty years old,
And several feet in his socks.

To Turniptopville-by-the-Sea
This elegant nobleman went,
For that was a borough that he
Was anxious to rep-per-re-sent.

At local assemblies he danced
Until he felt thoroughly ill;
He waltzed, and he galoped, and lanced,
And threaded the mazy quadrille.

The maidens of Turniptopville
Were simple—ingenuous—pure—
And they all worked away with a will
The nobleman’s heart to secure.

Two maidens all others beyond
Endeavoured his cares to dispel—
The one was the lively ANN POND,
The other sad MARY MORELL.

ANN POND had determined to try
And carry the Earl with a rush;
Her principal feature was eye,
Her greatest accomplishment—gush.

And MARY chose this for her play:
Whenever he looked in her eye
She’d blush and turn quickly away,
And flitter, and flutter, and sigh.

It was noticed he constantly sighed
As she worked out the scheme she had planned,
A fact he endeavoured to hide
With his aristocratical hand.

Old POND was a farmer, they say,
And so was old TOMMY MORELL.
In a humble and pottering way
They were doing exceedingly well.

They both of them carried by vote
The Earl was a dangerous man;
So nervously clearing his throat,
One morning old TOMMY began:

“My darter’s no pratty young doll—
I’m a plain-spoken Zommerzet man—
Now what do ’ee mean by my POLL,
And what do ’ee mean by his ANN?

Said B., “I will give you my bond
I mean them uncommonly well,
Believe me, my excellent POND,
And credit me, worthy MORELL.

“It’s quite indisputable, for
I’ll prove it with singular ease,—
You shall have it in ‘Barbara’ or
‘Celarent’—whichever you please.

‘You see, when an anchorite bows
To the yoke of intentional sin,
If the state of the country allows,
Homogeny always steps in—

“It’s a highly aesthetical bond,
As any mere ploughboy can tell—”
“Of course,” replied puzzled old POND.
“I see,” said old TOMMY MORELL.

“Very good, then,” continued the lord;
“When it’s fooled to the top of its bent,
With a sweep of a Damocles sword
The web of intention is rent.

“That’s patent to all of us here,
As any mere schoolboy can tell.”
POND answered, “Of course it’s quite clear”;
And so did that humbug MORELL.

“Its tone’s esoteric in force—
I trust that I make myself clear?”
MORELL only answered, “Of course,”
While POND slowly muttered, “Hear, hear.”

“Volition—celestial prize,
Pellucid as porphyry cell—
Is based on a principle wise.”
“Quite so,” exclaimed POND and MORELL.

“From what I have said you will see
That I couldn’t wed either—in fine,
By Nature’s unchanging decree
Your daughters could never be mine.

“Go home to your pigs and your ricks,
My hands of the matter I’ve rinsed.”
So they take up their hats and their sticks, .
And exeunt ambo, convinced.