“ Lord help ’em! how I pities all
Unhappy folks on shore now!
“Foolhardy chaps who live in town—
What danger they are all in,
And now are quaking in their beds,
For fear the roof should fall in.
Poor creatures! how they envies us,
And wishes, I’ve a notion,
For our good luck, in such a storm
To be upon the ocean.
“But as for them who’re out all day,
On business from their houses,
And late at night are coming home,
To cheer the babes and spouses,
While you and I, Bill, on the deck
Are comfortably lying,
My eyes! what tiles and chimney-pots
About their heads are flying! ”

“ It will burn in his breast through existence for ever,
Immutably fixed in the deeps of his soul! [231]
She wavers, she flutters: male midges are fickle;
Dare she trust him her future? she asks with a sigh.
He implores, and a tear is beginning to trickle.
She is weak: they embrace, and . . . the lovers pass by.
While they pass me, down here on a rose-leaf has lighted
A pale midge, his feelers all drooping and torn;
His existence is withered; its future is blighted;
His hopes are betrayed, and his breast is forlorn.
By the midge his heart trusted his heart is deceived ”

“ Burns, Shelley, were with us—they watched from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!
II
We shall march prospering, not thro’ his presence;
Songs may inspirit us, not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done, while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.
Blot out his name, then; record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod;
One more devils’ triumph, and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life’s night begins; let him never come back to us! ”

“ The lamp by whose light young Psyche shall approach unblamed her Eros.
Verily, Truth is as Eve, which was ashamed, being naked;
Wherefore doth Propriety dress her with the fair foliage of artifice;
And when she is drest, behold, she knoweth not herself again!
I walked in the forest, and above me stood the yew—
Stood like a slumbering giant, shrouded in impenetrable shade;
Then I pass’d into the citizen’s garden, and marked a tree clipt into shape
(The giant’s locks had been shorn by the Delilah-shears of Decorum) ,
And I said, “Surely Nature is goodly; but how much goodlier is Art!” ”

“ And each man hears, as the twilight nears to the beat of his dying heart,
The Devil drum on the darkened pane, “You did it, but was it Art?”
We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg;
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg;
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old, “It’s clever, but is it Art?”
When the flicker of London Sun falls faint on the Club-room’s green and gold,
The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould ”

“ THE BRITISH VISITOR
ARRIV’D, at last, Niagara to scan,
He walks erect and feels himself a man;
Surveys the cataract with a “critic’s eye,”
Resolv’d to pass no “imperfections by”—
Niag’ra, wonder of the Deity,
Where God’s own spirit reigns in majesty.
With sullen roar the foaming billows sweep;
A world of waters thunders o’er the steep;
The unmingled colours laugh upon the spray,
And one eternal rainbow gilds the day.
Oh, glorious God! Oh, scene surpassing all!
“True, true,” quoth he, “’tis something of a fall.” ”

“ Deny their sense,
Wit, eloquence,
Poetic fire,
All they desire.
Our say is said,
Long live the dead!
Charles Mackay. THE LAUREATE
WHO would not be
The Laureate bold,
With his butt of sherry
To keep him merry,
And nothing to do but to pocket his gold?
’Tis I would be the Laureate bold!
When the days are hot, and the sun is strong,
I’d lounge in the gateway all the day long,
With her Majesty’s footmen in crimson and gold. ”

“ But how much cursed by every lover,
[127] When hope is fled, and passion’s over!
Woman, that fair and fond deceiver,
How prompt are striplings to believe her!
How throbs the pulse when first we view
The eye that rolls in glossy blue,
Or sparkles black, or mildly throws
A beam from under hazel brows!
How quick we credit every oath,
And hear her plight the willing troth!
Fondly we hope ’twill last for aye,
When, lo! she changes in a day. ”

“ For that thou dousest thy glim at an hour that is unmetropolitan;
That thy frequenters’ feet turn townwards ere striketh eleven,
When the returning cars are filled with young men and maidens,
Most of the maidens asleep on the young men’s cindery shoulders—
Yea, but I spake as a fool, insensate, disgruntled, ungrateful:
Thee will I worship henceforth in appreciative humility;
Luxurious and splendid and urban, glorious and gaslit and gracious,
Gathering from every land thy gay and ephemeral tenantry,
From the Greek who hails thee “Thalatta!” to the rustic who murmurs “My golly!” ”

“ Than dog distract or monkey sick;
That with more care keep holy-day
The wrong, than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclin’d to,
By damning those they have no mind to;
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipped God for spite;
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for;
Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow;
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin;
Rather than fail, they will defy
That which they love most tenderly;
Quarrel with minc’d pies, and disparage
Their best and dearest friend, plum porridge ”

“ Let him, thanking his stars, choose a wife
To whom truth and honour are given.
But honour and truth are so rare,
And horns, when they’re cutting, so tingle,
That, with all my respect to the fair,
I’d advise him to sigh, and live single.
It appears from these premises plain,
That wisdom is nothing but folly;
That pleasure’s a term that means pain,
[79] And that joy is your true melancholy;
That all those who laugh ought to cry;
That ’tis fine frisk and fun to be grieving;
And that, since we must all of us die,
We should taste no enjoyment while living. ”

“ And, though brisk and merry to-day,
We may all be unhappy to-morrow.
For sunshine’s succeeded by rain;
Then, fearful of life’s stormy weather,
Lest pleasure should only bring pain,
Let us all be unhappy together.
I grant the best blessing we know
Is a friend, for true friendship’s a treasure ”

“ It is often asked why we have no satire at the present day. Many answers have been given, but one reason is doubtless to be found in the acceleration of the pace of life; fads and foibles follow one another so quickly, that we have time neither to write nor read satiric disquisitions upon them.
Another reason lies in the fact that we have achieved a broader and more tolerant human outlook.
Again, the true satirist must be possessed of earnestness and sincerity. And it is a question whether the mental atmosphere of the twentieth century tends to stimulate and foster those qualities. ”

“ Gelett Burgess. BALLADE OF EXPANSION 1899
TIME was he sang the British Brute,
The ruthless lion’s grasping greed,
The European Law of Loot,
The despot’s devastating deed;
But now he sings the heavenly creed
Of saintly sword and friendly fist,
He loves you, though he makes you bleed—
The Ethical Expansionist!
He loves you, Heathen! Though his foot
May kick you like a worthless weed
From that wild field where you have root,
And scatter to the winds your seed;
He’s just the government you need;
If you object, why, he’ll insist,
And, on your protest, “draw a bead”—
The Ethical Expansionist! ”

“ You gaze To-Day upon a Slip, which reads,
“The Editor Regrets”—and such-like Rot.
Waste not your Ink, and don’t attempt to use
That subtle Touch which Editors refuse;
Better be jocund at two cents a word,
Than, starving, court an ill-requited Muse!
Strange—is it not?—that of the Authors who
Publish in England, such a mighty Few
Make a Success, though here they score a Hit?
The British Public knows a Thing or Two!
The Scribe no question makes of Verse or Prose,
But what the Editor demands, he shows;
And he who buys three thousand words of Drool,
He knows what People want—you Bet He knows! ”

“ Till the want has burned out of our brains,
[262] Every means shall be present to state;
While we send for the napkins, the soup gets cold;
While the bonnet is trimming, the face grows old;
When we’ve matched our buttons, the pattern is sold,
And everything comes too late—too late!
“When strawberries seemed like red heavens,
Terrapin stew a wild dream,
When my brain was at sixes and sevens,
If my mother had ‘folks’ and ice-cream,
Then I gazed with a lickerish hunger
At the restaurant-man and fruit-monger—
But oh! how I wished I were younger,
When the goodies all came in a stream—in a stream! ”

“ In youth ’twas projected, but years stole away,
And ere ’twas complete he was wrinkled and gray;
But success is secure, unless energy fails,
And at length he produced The Philosopher’s Scales.
“What were they?” you ask. You shall presently see.
These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea.
Oh, no; for such properties wondrous had they,
That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh,
Together with articles small or immense,
From mountains or planets to atoms of sense. ”

“ One small grave is what he gets!
Thomas Carlyle. FATHER-LAND AND MOTHER-TONGUE
OUR Father-land! And would’st thou know
Why we should call it Father-land?
It is, that Adam here below
Was made of earth by Nature’s hand;
And he, our father, made of earth,
Hath peopled earth on ev’ry hand,
And we, in memory of his birth,
[136] Do call our country “Father-land.”
At first, in Eden’s bowers, they say,
No sound of speech had Adam caught,
But whistled like a bird all day,
And may be ’twas for want of thought.
But Nature, with resistless laws,
Made Adam soon surpass the birds ”

“ A SATIRE ANTHOLOGY CHORUS OF WOMEN (From the “Thesmophoriazusæ.”)
THEY’RE always abusing the women,
As a terrible plague to men;
They say we’re the root of all evil,
And repeat it again and again—
Of war, and quarrels, and bloodshed,
All mischief, be what it may.
And pray, then, why do you marry us,
If we’re all the plagues you say?
And why do you take such care of us,
And keep us so safe at home,
And are never easy a moment
If ever we chance to roam?
When you ought to be thanking Heaven
That your plague is out of the way,
You all keep fussing and fretting—
“Where is my Plague to-day?” ”

“ Which pipeth the semblance of a tune, and mechanically draweth up the water;
And the reinless steed of the desert, though his neck be clothed with thunder,
Must yield to him that danceth and “moveth in the circles” at Astley’s.
For verily, O my daughter, the world is a masquerade,
And God made thee one thing, that thou mightest make thyself another.
A maiden’s heart is as champagne, ever aspiring and struggling upward,
And it needed that its motions be checked by the silvered cork of Propriety;
He that can afford the price, his be the precious treasure ”

“ He sunk on her breast,
And lay there, as dead as a salmon.
Oh, had I a voice that was stronger than steel,
With twice fifty tongues to express what I feel,
And as many good mouths, yet I never could utter
All the speeches my lord made to Lady Bunbutter!
So polite all the time, that he ne’er touched a bit,
While she ate up his rolls and applauded his wit;
For they tell me that men of true taste, when they treat,
Should talk a great deal, but they never should eat ”

“ There’s a butcher, and a carpenter’s, and a plumber, and a small green grocer’s, and a baker,
But he won’t bake on a Sunday; and there’s a sexton that’s a coal merchant besides, and an undertaker;
And a toy-shop, but not a whole one, for a village can’t compare with the London shops;
One window sells drums, dolls, kites, carts, bats, Clout’s balls, and the other sells malt and hops.
And Mrs. Brown, in domestic economy, not to be a bit behind her betters,
Lets her house to a milliner, a watchmaker, a rat-catcher, a cobbler, lives in it herself, and it’s the post-office for letters. ”

“ As you walk your mystic way,
“If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be!”
Be eloquent in praise of the very dull old days which have long since passed away,
And convince ’em, if you can, that the reign of good Queen Anne was Culture’s palmiest day. ”

“ If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your mediæval hand.
And every one will say,
As you walk your flowery way,
“If he’s content with a vegetable love, which would certainly not suit me,
Why, what a most particularly pure young man this pure young man must be!” ”

“ OUR village, that’s to say, not Miss Mitford’s village, but our village of Bullock’s Smithy,
Is come into by an avenue of trees, three oak pollards, two elders, and a withy;
And in the middle there’s a green, of about not exceeding an acre and a half;
It’s common to all and fed off by nineteen cows, six ponies, three horses, five asses, two foals, seven pigs and a calf! ”

“ Marriage and Purgatory are as one.”
In bliss extreme he entered heaven’s door,
And knew the peace he ne’er had known before.
He scarce had entered in the Garden fair,
Another Hindoo asked admission there.
The self-same question Brahma asked again:
“Hast been through Purgatory?” “No; what then?”
“Thou canst not enter!” did the god reply.
“He that went in was no more there than I.”
“Yes, that is true, but he has married been,
And so on earth has suffered for all sin.”
“Married? ’Tis well; for I’ve been married twice!”
“Begone! We’ll have no fools in Paradise!” ”