“ Benign restorer of the soul!
Who ever fly’st to bring relief,
When first we feel the rude controul
Of Love or Pity, Joy or Grief.
The sage’s and the poet’s theme,
In every clime, in every age;
Thou charm’st in Fancy’s idle dream,
In Reason’s philosophic page.
That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source,
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.
On a Tear.
(Suggested by the above Poem.)
Oh! that the tailor’s modish art
Could fashion trousers to our measure,
Secure and strong in every part,
A source of inexpensive pleasure! ”

“ They faced the Tory fury, they tamed the Tory pride;
Shall what their care bequeathed to us, our madness fling away?
Is the ripe fruit of three-score years all blighted in a day?
O crier, to the polling summon the eager throng!
O tribunes, breathe the word of might that guards the weak from wrong!
No, by the earth beneath us, and by the sky above,
We will not yield to Balfour’s hate, Hibernia, whom we love.
No, let the Maiden’s Home be free, its Rule be hers, with pride
She who now loathes ye—as a slave—will love ye—as a bride. ”

“ On the Death of the Princess Charlotte, of Wales.
(In imitation of Cowper’s dirge on the loss of the “Royal George.”)
Wail for the dead!
And rend thy streaming hair,
Thou fairest Island-Queen
That ever ocean bare!
All lonely on the rock,
To every passing sail,
Let thy deep shriek of woe
Fly pinioned on the gale.
Not light that tale of woe is,
No trouble of a day;
Thy cup of Joy is dashed,
Is dashed in haste away.
Wail for the dead!
The high-born and the good!
Long years must pass before
Her equal shall be viewed. ”

“ O weary lady, Geraldine,
I pray you, drink this cordial wine!
It is a wine of virtuous powers;
My mother made it of wild flowers.
* * * * *
Again the wild-flower wine she drank:
Her fair large eyes ’gan glitter bright,
And from the floor whereon she sank,
The lofty lady stood upright;
She was most beautiful to see,
Like a lady of a far countrée.
And thus the lofty lady spake—
All they, who live in the upper sky,
Do love you, holy Christabel!
And you love them, and for their sake
And for the good which me befell,
Even I in my degree will try,
Fair maiden, to requite you well. ”

“ Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripped with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.
She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all passed away from her eyes.
William Wordsworth. ”

“ And the song of the birds thro’ your heart is ringing,
’Tis pleasant—’tis pleasant, when happily humming
To the flowers below the blythe bee is coming!—
When the rivulet coy, and ashamed to be seen,
Is heard where it hides ’mong the grass-blades green,
When the light of the moon and each sweet starry islet
Gives a charm more divine to the long summer twilight,
When the breeze o’er the blossomy hawthorn comes cheerful,
’Tis pleasant—with heart—ah, how happy!—tho’ fearful,
With heaven-beaming eyes, where tears come, while smiles glisten
To the lover’s low vows in the silence to listen! ”

“ Time brings misfortunes; and the surging tide
Of City traffic roaring under me
Hath sapp’d me to the base, and to one side
Hath made me lean, as now you sadly see.
Two centuries ago I graced this spot,
When these old stones by fewer feet were worn;
But now stern Progress vows that I cannot
Block up the street, or longer here be borne.
Pity the sorrows of a poor old Bar,
Whose trembling walls unsightly timbers shore
Whom Time has mark’d with many an ugly scar,
Oh! take him down, and stick him up no more.
Judy. September 9, 1874. ”

“ She mews thro’ all the hours of sleep—
Till morning comes with its pleasant beams,
And the cat is at rest, and the baron dreams!
Let it rain, however fast,
Rest from rain will come at last,
And the blaze that strongest flashes
Sinks at last, and ends in ashes!
But sorrow from the human heart
And mists of care will they depart?
I know not, and cannot tell,
Saith the Lady Christabel—
But I feel my bosom swell
In my spirit I behold
A lady—call her firm, not bold—
Standing lonely by the burn
—Strange feelings thro’ her breast and brain
Shoot with a sense of madness and pain. ”

“ My name is Marcus Curtius! a Roman knight am I,—
And eke a learned counsellor, but, alas! I cannot lie!
I’ve gone upon the Circuit,—there came no briefs to me;
I ne’er addressed a jury, ne’er pocketed a fee.
Alas! mistaken parents, to bind me to the law!
I have no natural cunning to make or find a flaw.
He who’d sit upon a woolsack must be ne’er with conscience cursed,
And, for wool to fill the cushion, he must take to fleecing first.
Then behold in me, O Romans! what the oracle demands,
The thing in Rome that’s rarest, a lawyer with clean hands. ”

“ And e’en the country spots, the histories say,
Found the strange taste diffusing,
Love of wigs ’twas quite amusing;
At length the costume died away.
And now how altered is the Fashion’s tone!
When silks and satin of most brilliant hue
Their show across each shoulder flung,
Their flounces gemmed with ribbons, too,
Had a distingué air when seen upon the young,
A charm that’s in Belgravia well-known,
In nez retroussé, or in beauty’s queen,
So that e’en beardless boys are seen
Looking quite sheepish or quite green,
Till exercise gives them a leer,
As love leaps up where Fashion doth appear. ”

“ And will,—till some commotion
Make plain we’ve but a paper fleet
Wherewith to rule the Ocean.
“It eateth up the Estimates,
By threats ’tis ne’er deterred;
It blundereth and plundereth,—
A most ill-omened bird!
“And as it swalloweth each sum
Without remorse or shame,
And question shuns,—that shaft and guns
Keep up the same old game.
“Not one, but scores on scores, while I,
Poor minion of the Board,
From its foul wake, my flight to take,
At present can’t afford.
“And so the Admiralty Goose
Soars on; and men may hollo,
And call me any names they like,—
Alas! I’m bound to follow! ”

“ Till off the Flemish coast, becalmed, the great Armada lay;
And still the gallant English ships kept up with their advance
Till six-score sail around them lay, and waited for their chance.
Meanwhile on land, Her Grace’s troops, as active as the fleet,
Prepared themselves with urgent haste the foreign foe to meet.
Ten thousand Londoners in arms rallied around the Queen,
A hundred thousand, hastening up from every shire, were seen;
And as they came they leapt and danced and sang, with cheerfull face,
As nimble runners gird their loins, with joy to run a race. ”

“ Punch. July 28, 1860. (The wet summer.) 73
April:
Or, the New Hat.
My Boots had been wash’d—well wash’d—in a show’r;
But little I griev’d about that:
What I felt was the havoc a single half hour,
Had made with my costly new Hat.
For the Boot, tho’ its lustre be dimm’d, shall assume
Fresh sprightliness after a while:
But what art may restore its original bloom,
When once it hath flown, to the Tile?
I clomb to my perch, and the horses (a bay
And a brown) trotted off with a clatter:
The Driver look’d round in his affable way
And said huskily, “Who is your hatter?” ”

“ By day triumphal banners wave, by night the bonfires blaze,
The church-bells’ merry carillon, the cannon’s harmless roar,
Are echoed loud from shire to shire, resound from shore to shore.
At Whitehall now the Virgin Queen, on the appointed day,
In grand procession takes her place amidst the crowded way.
See, on her right, great Cecil rides: a wiser man than he
Ne’er led our glorious country on to meet his destiny:
And, on her left, in manhood’s prime, is Raleigh proud and brave,
Back from Virginia lately come, across the Atlantic Wave. ”

“ For Harcourt and his legions and Firth, that recreant knight,
Have dared the valiant Griffin and the Turtle to the fight!
Now Fowler wipes his reeking brow, while smiles relax his face,
For have they not already flinched before his mighty mace?
And noble Nottage waves his lens, and seeks the thickest strife,
And woe to those who stand to him—he’ll “take ’em from the life”!
* * * * *
But why this shadow o’er the board, this phantom at the feast?
The day is won, the foe has fled, his fierce assaults have ceased. ”

“ Short is the passage to the barn or stable;
Alas! I’m weak, and miserably old.
St. Michael’s fatal day approaches near;
A day we all have reason sure to curse;
E’en at the name my blood runs cold with fear,
So inimical is that Saint to us.
204
You have misfortunes; why should I repine?
We’re born for food to man, full well I know;
But may your fate, ah! never be like mine,
A poor old Goose, of misery and woe.
A numerous flock elected me their Queen;
I then was held of all our race the pride;
When a bold Gander, waddling from Brook Green,
Declar’d his love, and I became his bride. ”

“ Punch. October 25, 1884.
The Bitter Cry of Agriculture.
Do you hear the cry from Farmers, O my brothers,
As the toilsome years go by?
’Tis a cry that should be heard above all others
A continuous and bitter cry.
The shipping may be crying with its grievance,
The factory as each spindle slowly turns
Home competition with its dogged keen adherence
And labour for employment daily yearns;
But the cry from Agriculture, O my brothers,
Comes up from English Homesteads wearily
And affects the Nation far above all others
In this Country of the free. ”

“ That the great Tichborne Claimant
Should suffer wrong no more:
By the nine points he swore it,
And ere the polling day
He straightway rose and gat him forth,
And taking tickets for the North,
He sped him on his way.
Full rapidly yet surely,
The Midland train runs fast,
Until the town of potteries
Is safely gained at last!
Woe to the vile traducer
Who treats it as a joke,
For Qucealy the avenger
Is on the march for Stoke.
There be many whom the franchise
Makes voters in the land,
Who always by the public house,
Both morn and evening stand.
Evening and morn they linger
About the open door ”

“ And lock up young swells who are “out for a lark;”
To vote for the Tories or not vote at all,
To ride in his carriage, and cabs never call;
In short, “fit and proper” to be and to feel,
For the Court is itself—oh! so very genteel!
Wanted—an Alderman!
Funny Folks.
Wanted an Editor.
Wanted an Editor, burly and big,
Clever, and willing, and hearty.
Neither a Radical, Tory, nor Whig,
But able to please every party.
He must not be squeamish, nor over nice
In tracing out jobs, root and fibre
He must loathe every sinner, lash every vice
But never offend a subscriber. ”

“ Some wondrous legend, fill’d with death and blood,
Some monkish history, perhaps, is laid!
With store of barbarous Latin at command
Though arm’d with puns, and jingling quibble’s mights
Yet could not these soothe Time’s remorseless hand
Or save their labours from eternal night.
Full many an Elegy has mourn’d its fate,
Beneath some pasty cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d;
Full many an Ode has soar’d in lofty state,
Fix’d to a kite, and quivering in the wind. ”

“ Some maiden fair and thoroughbred;
For there be women fair as she,
Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.
Alas for maiden! alas for judge!
And the sentimental,—that’s one-half “fudge;”
For Maud soon thought the judge a bore,
With all his learning and all his lore.
And the judge would have bartered Maud’s fair face
For more refinement and social grace.
If, of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, “It might have been,”
More sad are these we daily see:
“It is, but hadn’t ought to be.”
Bret Harte. ”

“ To spoil the child the British public chose,
And on the grown-up Convict spares the rod.
Punch. November 29, 1856.
A Lunatic Parody.
The curlew rolls amidst the darting spray,
And showy birds ride boldly o’er the sea,
Striving the foaming clods to clear away,
And leave the earth to chaos and to me.
The glades are simmering in the red moonlight,
And Hanwell all a solemn stillness holds;
Nay, e’en the beadle feels the moaning light,
And jelly sparkles in the glistening moulds. ”

“ Pick out what our mind most impresses
Amidst all its notions and noise;
And once more our moral commending
To those who its truths should apply,
Cry again, as our rhymes we are ending,
“Good bye to the Season! Good bye!”
(Six verses omitted.)
Truth. August 6, 1885.
Farewell to the Season.
Farewell to the Season! Not often
We take it so early as June;
But Chamberlain nothing could soften,
The Parties were all out of tune.
And so dissolution confronts us,
Ere roses are fairly in bloom,
And Gladstone from Westminster hunts us
To challenge our fate, and his doom. ”

“ The queasy call of sewage-breathing morn,
The ox, urg’d bellowing to the butcher’s shed,
The crowd’s loud clamouring at his threatening horn,
No more shall rouse them from their loathly bed.
For them no more the chamber-light shall burn,
The busy doctor ply his daily care,
Nor children to their sire from school return,
And climb his knees the dreaded pest to share.
Good folks, impute not to their friends the fault,
If memory o’er their bones no tombstone raise;
Where there lie dozens huddled in one vault,
No art can mark the spot where each decays. ”

“ Beat Beaconsfield at those small games.
I’m very sure I should not care
To fill our Sovereign’s royal chair.
As for the Commons, why require
A very large majority?
One member for each rural shire,
One for each town will do for me.
No small vexation turns me sour
When I am once installed in power.
Though fond of praise to some extent,
Unmingled flattery I despise,
So that it be sincerely meant,
A daily dose or two I prize—
There is no god that I can find
Whose cult extends to all mankind. ”