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Rossetti, with his inability to refrain from refrains, turned out this:

In Niger dwelt a lady fair,
(Bacon and eggs and a bar o’ soap!)
Who smiled ‘neath tangles of her hair,
As her steed began his steady lope.
(You like this style, I hope!)

On and on they sped and on,
(Bacon and eggs and a bar o’ soap!)
On and on and on and on;
(You see I’ve not much scope.)

E’en ere they loped the second mile,
The tiger ‘gan his mouth to ope;
Anon he halted for a while;
Then went on with a pleasant smile,
(Bacon and eggs and a bar o’ soap!)

Omar looked at the situation philosophically, and summed up his views in such characteristic lines as these.

Why if the Soul can fling the Dust aside
And, smiling, on a Tiger blithely ride,
Were’t not a Shame–were’t not a Shame for him
In stupid Niger tamely to abide?

Strange, is it not? that, of the Myriads who
Before us rode the Sandy Desert through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road
Which to discover we ride smiling, too.

We are no other than a moving Row
Of Magic Niger-shapes that come and go
Round with the Smile-illumined Tiger held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show.

Tennyson saw a dramatic opportunity, and gloried in his chance, thus:

Half a league, half a league,
On the big tiger,
Rode with a smiling face
The lady of Niger.

Mad rushed the noble steed,
Smiled she and took no heed;
Smiled at the breakneck speed
Of the big tiger.

Boldly they plunged and swayed,
Fearlessly and unafraid,–
Tiger and lovely maid,
Fair and beguiling;
Flash’d she her sunny smiles,
Flash’d o’er the sunlit miles;
Then they rode back, but not–
Not the same smiling!

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made,
Riding from Niger!
Honor the ride they made!
Honor the smiles displayed,
Lady and Tiger!

Kipling, of course, seized the theme for a fine and stirring Barrack-Room Ballad:

“What is the lady smiling for?”
Said Files-On-Parade.
“She’s going for a tiger ride,”
The Color-Sergeant said;
“What makes her smile so gay, so gay?”
Said Files-On-Parade;
“She likes to go for tiger rides,”
The Color-Sergeant said.

“For she’s riding on the tiger, you can see his stately stride;
When they’re returning home again, she’ll take a place inside;
And on the tiger’s face will be the smile so bland and wide,
But she’s riding on the tiger in the morning.”

Browning was pleased with the subject and did the best he could with it, along these lines:

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER:

(The Tiger speaks.)
I said, “Then, Dearest, since ’tis so,
Since now at length your fate you know,
Since nothing all your smile avails,
Since all your life seems meant for fails,
Henceforth you ride inside.”
Who knows what’s best? Ah, who can tell?
I loved the lady. Therefore,–well,–
I shuddered. Yet it had to be.
And so together, I and she
Ride, ride, forever ride.

Swinburne spread himself thusly:

O marvellous, mystical maiden,
With the way of the wind on the wing;
Low laughter thy lithe lips hath laden,
Thy smile is a Song of the Spring.
O typical, tropical tiger,
With wicked and wheedlesome wiles;
O lovely lost lady of Niger,
Our Lady of Smiles.

Edgar Allan Poe put it this way:

See the lady with a smile,
Sunny smile!
Hear her gaysome, gleesome giggle as she rides around in style!
How the merry laughter trips
From her red and rosy lips,
As she smiles, smiles, smiles, smiles, smiles, smiles, smiles,
While she rides along the dusty, desert miles.