George R. Sims

“ HE Act of Sir John had been passed by the State,
And the shops were all closed as Big Ben thundered eight;
The desolate streets were denuded of light,
And only the gin-palace gas-jets were bright.
The widow, whose poor little shop was her all,
A tear on the shroud she was making let fall.
One daughter, upstairs, in the garret lay dead,
And another was dying, the doctor had said.
Ah! bitter the doom that the widow foresaw—
She was ruined and crushed by the “merciful” law;
Her trade was all done with the people, you see,
Who only at seven or eight are set free. ”

“ All heedless of the web that fate has spun to hold me fast,
Sometimes I sail o’er summer seas where ne’er a shadow’s cast;
And youth and hope are mine again, and life’s a sweet green isle
That sleeps upon the ocean’s breast and basks in heaven’s smile.{97}
My lazy barque floats placidly towards that haven fair,
The sunny slopes grow nearer still—one moment, and I’m there;
One little leap from deck to shore—I wake with quite a start,
The milk-cans dance a carmagnole upon that early cart. ”

“ To be laid with her darling at rest ’neath the sod,
To have passed from a land where the fanatics rave,
And free Britons load with the chains of the slave!
Ha! a customer comes with her purse in her hand—
She wants this, she wants that. But the law of the land
Forbids the poor widow to sell—it’s too late;
The curfew has tolled—it’s a minute past eight. ”

“ And act on a sensible Plan of Campaign?
There are women of England who toil for their bread—
Poor hard-working sisters and mothers and wives,
Whose years are a slavery, dreary and dread,
Who drag out their cruel and colourless lives.{133}
Can nothing be done that may better their state?
Shall the white women slaves in their bondage remain?
O, manhood of Britain! think, think of their fate,
And start the New Year with some Plan of Campaign.
The People’s Palace.
SING of the People’s Palace, a tale of Arabian nights,
A place where the toiling masses could feast on all true delights. ”

“ When its little peepers opened to their primal ray of light
They’d a look of dissipation and of being out all night,
And, before a score of seconds had passed o’er its infant head,
It had, in a fit of passion, kicked its mother out of bed.
At a week, a scheme of murder floated through its baby brain,
For the monthly nurse, unwisely, had displayed her watch and chain;
So he slew her, and he stole them, with an infantile “Ha, ha!” ”

“ NCE on a time ’twas the freak of fate
That Fidgitt and Whims should collaborate,
So they sat them down on a midsummer day
To think of a plot and to write a play.
They both shook hands ere the task began,
Adopting the Prize Ring’s general plan,
And said, “If each other we chance to kill,
It isn’t a murder,” with right good will. ”

“ When on my breast a demon sits, who’s marked me for his prey,
I’m glad that milk-carts go about so early in the day.
Pass on, disturber of my rest—pass on thy way unseen;
You little know how very near to murder you have been;
Your reckless driver never dreams how great has been his share
In making me the wreck I am—and p’r’aps he doesn’t care.{98}
Yet when I sleep the dreamless sleep in that great silent town,
Where ne’er a cart of any kind goes rattling up and down—
The coroner who sat on me may possibly suggest
That “Died of too much early milk” would suit my tombstone best. ”

“ And on the asphalte likes to hear his horse’s heavy feet,
And bangs against the kerb and makes his swaying milk-cans crash,
Desires to settle straight away a nervous mortal’s hash.{96}
Through weary hours I lie awake and toss from side to side,
A genuine Jekyll tortured by a much too real Hyde;
And when at last my drooping lids have shut that Hyde away,
The early milk-cart rattles by and bids the demon stay.
You little reck, you noisy thing, as ’neath the fading stars
You jump and jolt, that every jerk on some poor toiler jars ”

“ Yet when Ethelbert goes his mamma stays behind,
One awful—one dreadful idea on her mind.
By her boy’s own affianced she thinks John was slain,
But she daren’t tell her darling—’twould cause him such pain.
From a half-witted servant the son gets a clue—
The half-witted servant is known as “Mad Hugh.”
But the story he tells blanches Ethelbert’s hair—
On the night of the murder his mother was there.
It seems she suspected his sweetheart and John,
In the words of “Mad Hugh,” “were a-carrying on.” ”

“ The Pirate ’Bus.
T was a pirate omnibus, that plied its evil trade
Along the London thoroughfares, and O, the games it played!
It ran a stout old lady down, who wanted Temple Bar,
And when they reached the Marble Arch, the cad cried, “Here you are;{139}
But ere you step ashore, old gal, your ransom you must pay.”
He charged a shilling, slammed the door, and then he sailed away,
While driver and conductor yelled, “No use to make a fuss;
We snap our fingers at the law—we are a pirate ’bus!” ”

“ And the gay young germs of neuralgia play
Down in the shadow where the microbes grow.
Oh, come, my love, where the sun ne’er smirks,
Down in the shadow where the microbes grow;
To the wild wet waste where consumption lurks—
Down in the shadow where the microbes grow.
Where the cough makes music, and the bronchial wheeze
Replies to the echo of the sniff and sneeze,
And asthma flirts with the cut-throat breeze,
Down in the shadow where the microbes grow.{49}
Oh, come, my love, and abide with me,
Down in the shadow where the microbes grow ”

“ My mother wasn’t pretty, do you wonder I am plain?
My father was consumptive, and my hollow cheeks you see;
Can you wonder I’m a drunkard when my mother had d.t.?
Science speaks out pretty plainly on “hereditary taint,”
And the sinner breeds a sinner, as the saint begets a saint;
Then why call me Ananias, and reproach me, since, forsooth,
My papa was such a liar that I cannot tell the truth?
When his ancestors for ages by their own mad acts have died,
Do you wonder that a fellow has a taste for suicide? ”

“ When he sings in praise of our English “bise,”
The wind that blows ’neath the cold gray sky,
That stabs the chest and inflames the eye;
It is death that hovers with sable wing
On “the balmy breeze of awakening Spring.” ”

“ A gibbering housemaid groans and glares,
And tries with trembling hands to snatch
A ghostly dustpan from the stairs.
MORAL.
Ye housemaids who this tale may read,
Remember, backs are hard to mend,
And injured noses freely bleed,
And falls may cause untimely end;
Your masters are but mortal men,
A neck once broken naught repairs. ”

“ But ne’er a song-bird trills its lay
In Gerrard Street, Soho.
No breeze here bears the babel roar—
Life’s ocean, tideless evermore,
Lies dead upon the silent shore
Of Gerrard Street, Soho.
The hermit seeking holy calm
May soothe his soul with Gilead balm
Beneath the desert’s one green palm
In Gerrard Street, Soho.{37}
But ’twas, oh, ’twas not always thus
Men flying from life’s fume and fuss
In urbe found a peaceful rus
In Gerrard Street, Soho. ”

“ At the gath’ring on the housetop of the Browns of Walham Green.{147}
Every week came other terrors, every week their fears grew worse,
Till they felt their lives a burthen, till they felt their home a curse ”

“ Then I’ll away to Parliament and board the pirate ’bus.{141}”
No more above the driver’s seat the black flag sweeps the seas,
No more the skull and bones across flaunts out upon the breeze;
The buccaneering ’bus is bust, conductor Kidd is done,
Paul Jones the driver’s game is up, his pirate race is run. ”

“ The ducks emit their bronchial quack;
But all day long from dawn to dark
The crossing-sweeper’s trade is slack.
The Langham porter’s wand’ring eye
Encounters ne’er a human face;
No smoke curls upward to the sky—
The blinds are down in Portland Place.
The thoroughfare is broad and wide,
The vestry keeps the roadway clean,
And I can walk on either side,
Or ’gainst each separate lamp-post lean.
I’m king of all that I survey—
As sad as Selkirk’s is my case—
Oh, soon, to save my reason, may
The blinds go up in Portland Place!
The Shirt Buttons.
(AFTER SWINBURNE.)
FF! ”

“ And the maidens of Albion shuddered and sighed,
And but for their eyes would have certainly cried.
Every prize of the season had gone to the States,
The American girls had the best of the weights;
The “piles” of the pa’s and their personal charms
Had proved in the battle all-conquering arms.{87}
And now but one Duke there remained to be had. ”

“ In each wrinkled face is a soldier’s pride,
They have won the guerdon so long denied,
And we honour their deed with—what do you think?—
A benefit at a skating rink!
{32} A Child’s Idea.
IGHTLY holding her mother’s hand,
A little girl tripped o’er her father’s land;
Squire of all the acres he,
As far as the little one’s eyes could see,
And his wife and his daughter, his “Baby May,”
Were “seeing the folks” this Christmas Day. ”

“ And the fires glow bright through each open door{33}
There’s a happy smile upon ev’ry face,
The village is quite a fairy place;
And in every cottage at which they call
The green and holly are on the wall;
And all the family gathered there
Are seated around the Christmas fare.
“How happy they are!” says Baby May,
As she looks at the feast and the feasters gay ”

“ And skilly and toke was the Prince’s fate—
“It’ll do him good,” said the magistrate.
But Parliament took up the Prince’s case,
And the young P.C., with a scared, white face,
Read out to his pal the big debate—
“It’s awfully hot,” said the magistrate.
Then the constable said, “It’s the blooming Press
As has settled our nice little games, I guess;
We’d better resign, as the row’s so great”—
“I believe you, my boy,” said the magistrate.
{131} The Imperial Institute.
(AFTER LORD TENNYSON.)
AIL, O Imperial Institute! ”

“ Ne’er did eyes enchanted
See a sight so fair.
Ne’er till memory falters
And my senses fail
Shall I forget that journey
Upon the Rigi Rail.
{77} A Plea for Mercy.
O, do not flog the brutal rough
Who jumps upon his wife,
Or in a little drunken huff
Prods children with a knife.
O, do not flog the brute who takes
The old man by the throat
And chokes him while a search he makes
Of trousers, vest, and coat.
O, do not flog the coward cur
Who pulps a woman’s face ”

“ And you’d play when the Bard wasn’t working.
A Word for the Police.
HE soldiers of our “City Guard,”
Through winter snows and summer heats,
From all the soldiers’ joys debarred,
Keep watch and ward in London streets.
For them no martial trumpets sound,
For them there waits no victor’s bay,
But on the lonely midnight round,
Unarmed, they face the fiercest fray.
Alone, they brave the brawler’s blows,
The burglar’s shot, the ruffian’s knife ”

“ For she thinks it a moral, from facts which transpire,
John did fall a victim to Ethelbert’s ire.
So now you’ve the mother suspecting Miss G.,
And the son half persuaded ’twas old Mrs. B.;
While Miss G. feels convinced that the claret was spilt
By her lover, who some day must swing for his guilt.{123}
You pile up the agony now to the end,
And you’ve three loving bosoms with anguish to rend ”

“ For aiblins ye’ll leave me a will o’ my ain.”
So I fell on his bosom, etc.
For many lang months sin’ I cam’ to the crown
Auld Bizzy’s been hecklin’ and haudin’ me down;
I’ve held by his coat-tails this aught months and ten,
But I’ll never gang back to auld Bizzy again.
I’ve held by his coat-tails, etc.
The Last Resource.
T forty-three, in broken health,
The heel of Fate has crushed my pride;
No joy I find in work or wealth—
There’s nothing left but suicide.
The wind blows ever from the east ”

“ Backed Ayrshire, and then was again on the wing.
Flying north, flying south, if we rumours believe,
Reaching Brighton and Glasgow the very same eve.
He’s been seen on the switchback, all over the town ”