JOHN courted lovely MARY ANN,So likewise did his brother, FREDDY.FRED was a very soft young man,While JOHN, though quick, was most unsteady. FRED was a graceful kind of youth,But JOHN was very much the strongest.“Oh, dance away,” said she, “in truth,I’ll marry him who dances longest.” JOHN tries the maiden’s taste to strikeWith gay, grotesque, […]

Sir GUY was a doughty crusader,A muscular knight,Ever ready to fight,A very determined invader,And DICKEY DE LION’S delight. LENORE was a Saracen maiden,Brunette, statuesque,The reverse of grotesque,Her pa was a bagman from Aden,Her mother she played in burlesque. A coryphee, pretty and loyal,In amber and redThe ballet she led;Her mother performed at the Royal,LENORE at […]

Come with me, little maid,Nay, shrink not, thus afraid–I’ll harm thee not!Fly not, my love, from me–I have a home for thee–A fairy grot,Where mortal eyeCan rarely pry,There shall thy dwelling be! List to me, while I tellThe pleasures of that cell,Oh, little maid!What though its couch be rude,Homely the only foodWithin its shade?No thought […]

The bravest names for fire and flamesAnd all that mortal durst,Were GENERAL JOHN and PRIVATE JAMES,Of the Sixty-seventy-first. GENERAL JOHN was a soldier tried,A chief of warlike dons;A haughty stride and a withering prideWere MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN’S. A sneer would play on his martial phiz,Superior birth to show;“Pish!” was a favourite word of his,And he often […]

Of all the ships upon the blue,No ship contained a better crewThan that of worthy CAPTAIN REECE,Commanding of The Mantelpiece. He was adored by all his men,For worthy CAPTAIN REECE, R.N.,Did all that lay within him toPromote the comfort of his crew. If ever they were dull or sad,Their captain danced to them like mad,Or […]

Only a dancing girl,With an unromantic style,With borrowed colour and curl,With fixed mechanical smile,With many a hackneyed wile,With ungrammatical lips,And corns that mar her trips. Hung from the “flies” in air,She acts a palpable lie,She’s as little a fairy thereAs unpoetical I!I hear you asking, Why–Why in the world I singThis tawdry, tinselled thing? No […]

Oh, that my soul its gods could seeAs years ago they seemed to meWhen first I painted them;Invested with the circumstanceOf old conventional romance:Exploded theorem! The bard who could, all men above,Inflame my soul with songs of love,And, with his verse, inspireThe craven soul who feared to dieWith all the glow of chivalryAnd old heroic […]

BABETTE she was a fisher gal,With jupon striped and cap in crimps.She passed her days inside the Halle,Or catching little nimble shrimps.Yet she was sweet as flowers in May,With no professional bouquet. JACOT was, of the Customs bold,An officer, at gay Boulogne,He loved BABETTE–his love he told,And sighed, “Oh, soyez vous my own!”But “Non!” said […]

DALILAH DE DARDY adoredThe very correctest of cards,LORENZO DE LARDY, a lord–He was one of Her Majesty’s Guards. DALILAH DE DARDY was fat,DALILAH DE DARDY was old–(No doubt in the world about that)But DALILAH DE DARDY had gold. LORENZO DE LARDY was tall,The flower of maidenly pets,Young ladies would love at his call,But LORENZO DE […]

A TROUBADOUR he playedWithout a castle wall,Within, a hapless maidResponded to his call. “Oh, willow, woe is me!Alack and well-a-day!If I were only freeI’d hie me far away!” Unknown her face and name,But this he knew right well,The maiden’s wailing cameFrom out a dungeon cell. A hapless woman layWithin that dungeon grim–That fact, I’ve heard […]

PART I. At a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supperOne whom I will call ELVIRA, and we talked of love and TUPPER, MR. TUPPER and the Poets, very lightly with them dealing,For I’ve always been distinguished for a strong poetic feeling. Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a […]

It was a Bishop bold,And London was his see,He was short and stout and round aboutAnd zealous as could be. It also was a Jew,Who drove a Putney ‘bus–For flesh of swine however fineHe did not care a cuss. His name was HASH BAZ BEN,And JEDEDIAH too,And SOLOMON and ZABULON–This ‘bus-directing Jew. The Bishop said, […]

(To be sung to the Air of the “Whistling Oyster.”) An elderly person–a prophet by trade–With his quips and tipsOn withered old lips,He married a young and a beautiful maid;The cunning old blade!Though rather decayed,He married a beautiful, beautiful maid. She was only eighteen, and as fair as could be,With her tempting smilesAnd maidenly wiles,And […]

‘Twas on the shores that round our coastFrom Deal to Ramsgate span,That I found alone on a piece of stoneAn elderly naval man. His hair was weedy, his beard was long,And weedy and long was he,And I heard this wight on the shore recite,In a singular minor key: “Oh, I am a cook and a […]

From east and south the holy clanOf Bishops gathered to a man;To Synod, called Pan-Anglican,In flocking crowds they came.Among them was a Bishop, whoHad lately been appointed toThe balmy isle of Rum-ti-Foo,And PETER was his name. His people–twenty-three in sum–They played the eloquent tum-tum,And lived on scalps served up, in rum–The only sauce they knew.When […]

Of all the youths I ever sawNone were so wicked, vain, or silly,So lost to shame and Sabbath law,As worldly TOM, and BOB, and BILLY. For every Sabbath day they walked(Such was their gay and thoughtless natur)In parks or gardens, where they talkedFrom three to six, or even later. SIR MACKLIN was a priest severeIn […]

Oh! little maid!–(I do not know your nameOr who you are, so, as a safe precautionI’ll add)–Oh, buxom widow! married dame!(As one of these must be your present portion)Listen, while I unveil prophetic lore for you,And sing the fate that Fortune has in store for you. You’ll marry soon–within a year or twain–A bachelor of […]

I knew a boor–a clownish card(His only friends were pigs and cows andThe poultry of a small farmyard),Who came into two hundred thousand. Good fortune worked no change in BROWN,Though she’s a mighty social chymist;He was a clown–and by a clownI do not mean a pantomimist. It left him quiet, calm, and cool,Though hardly knowing […]

Lord B. was a nobleman boldWho came of illustrious stocks,He was thirty or forty years old,And several feet in his socks. To Turniptopville-by-the-SeaThis elegant nobleman went,For that was a borough that heWas anxious to rep-per-re-sent. At local assemblies he dancedUntil he felt thoroughly ill;He waltzed, and he galoped, and lanced,And threaded the mazy quadrille. The […]

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 […]