“ Oh! pray try none of these.
But when some plan that’s simpler far
Evolves to glad the day,
Home Rule shall with Coercion far
Betake themselves away;
And if thou’lt end such strife as this,
Not vain the strength that’s spent;
Go, ask—the answer comes, it is
But Local Government.
D. Evans.
Oh! call it by some better name,
Land Purchase is too cold,
And Separation is a scheme
Too venturesome and bold;
And Home Rule, like a tropic sun
That burns o’er all it sees,
Might scorch us when its aims were won—
Oh! call it none of these. ”

“ Clive, Wellington, Nelson, Howe, Liverpool, Pitt,
Made us proud of the House they adorned.
You are old, Noble Senate, the young Rad cried,
And to talk of your youth is to bray,
But if you are proud of the age you have reached,
Now tell me the reason, I pray.
There are men in our House, the Assembly replied,
Its promise of youth who fulfil,
And Salisbury, Wolseley, Lytton, Tennyson, Cairns,
Uphold and ennoble it still!
You are old, Noble Senate, the young Rad cried,
But, for all you may venture to say,
You can’t be immortal, or if you so claim,
Now, tell me the reason, I pray. ”

“ In Carlyle’s translation the poem opens thus:—
Know’st thou the land where lemon-trees do bloom,
And oranges like gold in leafy gloom;
A gentle wind from deep blue heaven blows,
The myrtle thick, and high the laurel grows?
Know’st thou it, then?
’Tis there! ’tis there
O my belov’d one, I with thee would go!
Inscribed to an Alderman.
Know ye the land where the leaf of the myrtle
Is bestowed on good livers in eating sublime?
Where the rage for fat ven’son and love of the turtle
Preside o’er the realms of an epicure clime? ”

“ While Norfolk’s Duke about your lot
His wise head shall concern.
Meanwhile, ye hardy labourers,
Your song of thanks should flow
To the fame of his name
Who the powder made you know:
Which, when hunger rages fierce and strong,
Will set you in glow.
Punch, January, 1845.
Ode to the “Specials.”
Ye Constables of London,
That guard our Cockney plain,
Whose staves have braved for several hours
The Chartists and the rain,
To Clerkenwell come forth once more
To meet your ancient foe,
And go then at the men
Who never struck a blow
At the men who spout so loud and long,
But never strike a blow! ”

“ But men must work and women must weep;
’Tis hard to do else when there’s nothing to eat,
While the Fossils go on droning.
Three ships were laid up in the stream hard by;
And the crews were discharged ere the sun went down;
And nothing was left for a roof but the sky;
And the moon’s not as warm as a quilt made of down.
But men must work and women must weep;
For none but a Fossil in comfort can sleep,
When the Shipping trade is groaning.
Three Fossils laid stretched on a Whitehall floor ”

“ Three men spoke up to the Gurteen throng,
And they trimmed their words by Home-Rule light;
They railed at the landlords, they raved about wrong,
And curses came rolling up black as the night,
For times are hard, and harvests are bad,
And troubles are many, and hearts grow sad,
With treason’s woes impending.
Three captives lay prisoned in Sligo jail,
Away in the West where the sun goes down;
And men mutter fiercely, and women bewail,
And Erin—poor Erin!—must reap the crop sown,
For times are hard and harvests are bad,
And famine and treason make misery mad,
Despair and death the ending. ”

“ Like leaves of the forest when summer is green,
The hosts of the Tories in August were seen;
Like leaves of the forest when autumn has blown,
These hosts in September were withered and strown.
For “Gladstone the traitor” went up to the North,
And tackled the foe on the banks of the Forth;
And the hopes of the Tories waxed deadly and chill,
And their tongues wagged but once, and for ever were still.
And the Tory old women are loud in their whines,
For their idols are broke, both at Hatfield and Pynes ”

“ In Courier, Times, or Post;
Then in dramatic verse and prose,
The martial muse should tell
How Warren triumphed o’er his foes,
How Thwackum fought and fell,
And how, despite his cartel, Day
Hied him, like recreant, from the fray.
’Tis done—the victors all are gone,
And fitfully the sun shines down
On many a bruised and burly clown,
The flower of whose sweet youth is mown,
To blossom ne’er again;
For e’en as grass cut down is hay,
So flesh when drubbed to death, is clay,
As proved each hind who slept that day
On Brentford’s crimson plain. ”

“ A shade that follows wealth or fame,
But leaves the wretch to weep?
“And love is still an emptier sound,
The modern fair-one’s jest;
On earth unseen, or only found
To warm the turtle’s nest.
“For shame, fond youth, thy sorrows hush,
And spurn the sex” he said
But while he spoke, a rising blush
His love-lorn guest betray’d.
Surpris’d he sees new beauties rise,
Swift mantling to the view;
Like colours o’er the morning skies,
As bright, as transient too.
The bashful look, the rising breast
Alternate spread alarms:
The lovely stranger stands confest,
A maid in all her charms. ”

“ And the speech that is o’er, in expiring gives birth,
To a new one as wretched as barren of nous,
And oh! if there be an Inferno on earth,
It’s the house! it’s the house!
Here Tories are raving—their voices are high,
As the bray of a jack-ass, or yelp of a hound,
And dirty their spleen as that rain from the sky,
Which turns into mud as it falls on the ground.
Oh! think what the conscience or mind must be worth,
When the speech and the satire are weak as a louse,
Then own if there be an Inferno on earth,
It’s the house! it’s the house! ”

“ Farewell—farewell to thee desolate Erin,
(Thus warbled a patriot beneath a dark tree,)
No curl ever lay on Law’s visage so leering,
More bright in its oil than thy spirit in thee.
Oh fair as the flowers all over thee growing,
How light was thy heart till curs’d Castlereagh came,
Like the breath of a Croker o’er eloquence blowing,
To hush all its music, and render it tame.
But yet when to Parliament they are returning,
There will still be amongst both the young and the old,
Some who with disgust most indignantly burning,
Will weep when they think how thy freedom was sold ”

“ DON JUAN.
Bob Southey! You’re a poet—Poet-laureate,
And representative of all the race;
Although ’tis true that you turn’d out a Tory at
Last,—yours has lately been a common case;
And now, my Epic Renegade! what are ye at?
With all the Lakers, in and out of place?
A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye
Like “four and twenty Blackbirds in a pye.”
* * * * *
Byron.
Dedication.
Ben Dizzy! You’re a humbug—Humbug-laureate,
And representative of all the race;
Although ’tis true that you turned out a Tory at
Last, yours is still an enigmatic face. ”

“ Long life to the woman who dared to declare it,
Be her gay Lady-Mayoralty marked by good luck:
Her robe fit divinely—her health last to wear it—
We don’t share her taste, but we honour her pluck.
The good City Queen sets a lesson to ladies
Who haven’t got minds, or have minds they don’t know:
Who don’t care if wine comes from China or Cadiz,
And simper alike over venison and veau!
We like a companion who knows what she’s eating,
(What chance for your tastes if she’s none of her own?)
So hip, hip, hurrah, for November that’s seating
A Sovereign like this on the Mansion House throne. ”

“ When Harry Brougham turns a Tory,
Too late convinc’d that Whigs betray,
What can revive his tarnish’d glory?
What his desertion best repay?
The only robe his shame to cover,
To hide the brand upon his back,
And best reward this faithless lover—
That Peel can give him is—the sack.
Punch February, 1844.
“When Lovely Woman.”
When lovely woman wants a favour,
And finds, too late, that man won’t bend,
What earthly circumstance can save her
From disappointment in the end?
The only way to bring him over,
The last experiment to try,
Whether a husband or a lover,
If he have feeling, is—to cry! ”

“ Wha for Scotland’s king and law
Freedom’s sword will strongly draw,
Free-man stand, or Free-man fa’,
Let him follow me?
By oppression’s woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty’s in every blow!
Let us DO or DIE!
Mr. Thompson, in acknowledging the Poem, remarked:—
“Your heroic ode is to me the noblest composition of the kind in the Scottish language. I happened to dine yesterday with a party of your friends to whom I read it. ”

“ We should still hold our own, with unterrified heart,
Let the outrages be what they will,
And our motto (however our injuries smart)
Should be “JUSTICE TO IRELAND!” still.
It is not to scoundrels, whom patriots disown,
And whom Erin has reason to fear,
That the meaning of FREEDOM can truly be known,
Nor the cause of “OLD IRELAND” be dear.
No! the heart of the Patriot never forgets
’Tis not thus he should conquer his foes,
And the emblem on which his reliance he sets
Is the Shamrock entwined with the Rose.
Echoes from the Clubs, December 25, 1867
John Bright to His Place. ”

“ Verse, both peasant and peer will echo thy name o’er the West end,
And thus shall it be with the man whom S—y delighteth to honour,
Already I hear thy puffs discussed in the circle at Almack’s,
Dusking with sable shade the light of the Scotch Ariosto
Already I hear them arranged for the violincello by Smart, and
Melting on syren lips in lieu of Italian bravuras:
Braham at Drury Lane, the Stephens at proud Covent Garden,
Dwell on each soul stirring rhyme as a lover dwells on the moonlight,
When by its virgin beam his nymph hurries onward to kiss him. ”

“ Less soft than Zuleika, less bright than Gulnare?
Are her sons less renowned, or her warriors less brave,
Than the slaves of a Prince who himself is a slave?
Then strike thy wild lyre, let it swell with the strain,
Let the mighty in arms live and conquer again;
Their past deeds of valour thy lays shall rehearse,
And the fame of thy country revive in thy verse.
The proud wreath of victory round heroes may twine,
’Tis the poet who crowns them with honour divine;
And thy laurels, Pelides, had sunk in the tomb,
Had the bard not preserved them immortal in bloom! ”

“ We look up to the Grand Old Man,
And he looks out upon the sea
Of stormy politics, which can
Be still’d by none so well as he!
For standing at the Nation’s helm,
He safely guides the British Realm.
Fill high the bowl with Gladstone wine—
The sunny purple wine he gave—
Let fame and Bacchus round him twine
The wreaths that crown the good and brave!
His solid worth the nation rules,
Though worried by bombastic fools.
Trust not to Tories for a peace—
They have a chief who longs for war,
Let tax and income tax increase. ”

“ Thomas Moore.
The First Rose of Summer.
’Tis the first rose of summer that opes to my view,
With its bright crimson bosom all bathed in the dew;
It bows to its green leaves, with pride from its throne,
’Tis the queen of the valley, and reigneth alone.
O! why, lovely stranger, thus early in bloom?
Art thou here to assure us that summer is come?
The primrose and harebell appear with the spring,
But tidings of summer the young roses bring.
Thou fair gift of nature, I welcome the boon ”

“ Cold as Russia’s wastes of snow.
’Twas not I who rent asunder
Ties which should have lived till death.
Thou hast been a wide world’s wonder
For thy scorn of love and faith.
Vain are now thy magic verses,
None to pity can they move;
Better far to send me curses
Than the mockery of love.
Though the world to soothe endeavour,
Though it sorrow for my pain
Can it, Byron, can it ever
Make thy false heart true again?
No! a heart once dead to feeling
True again can never prove,
And the wound that knows no healing
Is a woman’s trampled love. ”

“ On the confines of earth ’twas permitted to rest,
And the depths of the ocean its presence confessed.
’Twill be found in the sphere when ’tis riven asunder,
Be seen in the lightning, and heard in the thunder,
’Twas allotted to man with his earliest breath,
Attends at his birth, and awaits him in death;
It presides o’er his happiness, honour, and health,
Is the prop of his house, and the end of his wealth.
Without the soldier and seaman may roam,
But woe to the wretch who expels it from home.
In the whispers of conscience its voice will be found,
Nor e’en in the whirlwind of passion be drowned. ”

“ Where the land is idle and nought is seen
But the dear wild flowers and woodland green,
And the sun shines down on a desolate spot—
Is it there, is it there, my three acre plot?
Not there, not there, my man.
It only exists in the “Tory” brain.
Though they always “father it” on Chamberlain;
They think we want bribes to get a vote,
Like the Tories from Parnell, then cut his throat;
But in vulgar phrase, it is all in “my eye,”
“A great, big, thumping,” Tory “lie;” ”

“ And three-deep, we’ve to sleep,
In the trenches all a-row,
With the batteries roaring loud and long,
Four hundred guns or so!
The ghosts of clothing colonels
Would shudder in their graves;
For no two of us are rigged the same,
And scarce a fellow shaves.
Light cavalry and heavy swell
Black as coal-heavers show;
You can keep clean so cheap,
But here a tub’s no go;
For water you’ve to shell out strong,
And then it’s salt, you know.
Out here we need no boot-jacks,
For in our boots we sleep,
One never sees a dressing-case,
And hair brushes are cheap.
Deuce a cigar one gets to smoke ”

“ What’s the soft south-wester?
’Tis the ladies’ breeze,
Bringing home their true loves
Out of all the seas:
But the black north-easter,
Through the snowstorm hurled,
Drives our English hearts of oak
Seaward round the world.
Come, as came our fathers,
Heralded by thee,
Conquering from the eastward,
Lords by land and sea.
Come, and strong within us
Stir the Vikings’ blood;
Bracing brain and sinew;
Blow, thou wind of God!
Charles Kingsley.
The Surgeon’s Wind.
The wind is North-East—so let it be!
The North-East wind is the wind for me,
To me it blows good if to none besides ”

“ Oh where, and oh where, does my Harry Brougham dwell?—
He dwells at Cannes in bonny France, and likes it very well;
But recollect ’tis not the Cann’s where gravy soup they sell.
In what clothes, in what clothes, is your Harry Brougham clad?—
His hunting coat’s of velvet green, his trowsers are of plaid;
And it’s oh! in my heart, he can’t look very bad.
Suppose, and suppose, that your Harry Brougham should die!—
Dog Toby would weep over him, and Punch himself would cry:
But it’s oh! in our hearts, that we hope he will not die. ”

“ Scarce breaks through the gloom of the cold winter’s night?
’Tis the land of thy sires!—’tis the land of thy youth,
Where first thy young heart glowed with honour and truth;
Where the wild fire of genius first caught thy young soul,
And thy feet and thy fancy roamed free from control!
Ah, why does that fancy still dwell on a clime
Where Love leads to Madness, and Madness to Crime:
Where courage itself is more savage than brave;—
Where man is a despot, and woman a slave? ”