When shall their glory fade? Punch, November 6, 1875. HOW A HUNDRED GUESTS MET THEIR DEATH. “There seems to be hardly a single ailment not traceable to the poulterer or butcher.”-- Daily Paper. “ HALF a duck, half a duck, Guests do not shirk ye ; Eat a whole turkey!" On to death, onward ! Death in that conger! Cannot eat longer !'' While the host wondered. Mince pies were sundered ! Judy, January 16, 1884. 9 ON TIE RINK. Half a mile, half a mile, Half a mile onward, On to the skating rink Came the fair trio. “Skates for the fair trio, Oil them well before they go," Over the smooth rink Slide the fair trio. Some one had tumbled. Away o'er the rink Glide the fair trio. Admirers to right of them, Admirers to left of them, Admirers in front of them, Wonder'd and wonder'd. “Outside edge," and never fell, Boldly they skate and well, “Treble threes and Q.'s." Any step you choose, Over the smooth rink Glide the fair trio. Other girls envying. Whirling and twirling, Twisting and turning, Then they skate back, but not, Not alone the fair trio. Wonder'd and wonder'd. Away o'er the rink Glide the fair trio. " When can their beauty fade" Oh ! the grand show they made, All the rink wonder'd ; Ipplaud all the skill displayed, Admire the fair trio, Charming fair trio. The Figaro, April 10, 1876. A WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA. (.As the Laureate might have adapted it to the opening of the Alexandra Palace). Muswellian Palace far over the lea, ALEXANDRA! ALEXANDRA ! ALEXANDRA ! Of regions haunted by the Hun; Thence baled with cost of countless gold To Lambeth's marish, and in mould Innumerous, making day of night ; With most intensity of light, On floor and roof, and all is noise, In bacchant revel wheeling, trace The waltz with sweet disordered grace Of twinkling feet and Aashing curls. IN MEMORIAM TECHNICAM. That passion sways not with repose, That love, confounding these with those, To swelter in the rolling seas, Along the ridges of the strand Not far apart, but hand in hand With all the darkness danced away ! Vere Vereker's l'engeance. By Thomas Hood, the younger, 1865. There have been numerous imitations of in Memoriam, and Mr. William Dobson, in his "Poetical Ingenuities," speaking of parodies, observes :-"One appeared in Punch a number -" of years ago, called “Ozokerit,' a travesty of Tennyson's 'In Memoriam,' which has been considered one of the finest ever written." It is unquestionably very clever. Singularly enough it did not appear in the body of Punch at all, but on the outside wrapper, as an advertisement, so that many people who have bound sets of Punch will not find the parody, which was as follows: OZOKERIT. Wild whispers on the air did fit, Wild whispers, shaped to mystic hints, When bright in breadths of public prints That embryon thing should leap to view ! And “what is it,” and “ whereunto ?" Or will he, in the cycled course Of Time, with circumstance and force “Our fooling makes this fellow blithe, Ile joys to see conjecture writhe (When Time be ripe, which now is rathe) His Titan-touch unfold the swathe Shed largess of all precious balms ! We dimly grope with vacant palms In vain, and lulling doubt to sleep: With soul phlogistic, sent to cloy Our Æon, with Promethean joy:- 1 A NEW CHRISTMAS SONG. (Adapted to the Times from In Memoriam). Apropos of the wet winter of 1872. Wring out the clouds in that damp sky, Which all this year so drear have made, If, for the weather's clerk, her trade Wring, weather-washerwoman, so, That we shod if the Old Year must go The New may damps and dumps eschew. Wring out the wet that stands in clay, Rots the potatoes in their bed, Fingers and toes gives swedes instead Of constant cold through warp and woof, To which I've been wet many times ; Ring out the raindrops' pattering chimes, And bring some drier weather in ! Punch, December 28, 1872. I NE RING. Ring out, glad bells ! with clappers strong ; Ring out the year that dies to-night! Ring in the new year with the light ! Ring in the right, ring out the wrong. Ring out the squabbles at the Zoo ! Ring opera boxes in my reach, And “natives” at a penny each ! Ring out Ward Hunt, whate'er you do. Ring out the tax collector's knocks The Hebrew usurer--the dun! Ring coals in at a pound a ton, The rinderpest and Ouida's books! Ring in the Law Courts, if you can! Ring out, ring out, the Englishman! Ring out Kenealy, right away! 0. P. \. P. Smiff, in The Figaro, January 5, 1876. Detached portions of Tennyson's Maud have frequently been parodied, but the only case in which any attempt appears to have been made to imitate all its varying styles, and phases of thought, occurs in a small volume published in 1859, entitled Rival Rhymes in Honour of Burns. Unfortunately, the mere trick of imitating the metre only does not constitute a good parody, and this one lacks both in interest and humour. It is, besides, very long. The following are some of its best verses : THE Poet's BIRTH: A MYSTERY. B'y the P-t L-te. THE COMING MANVIKIN. I. I HATE the clreadful hollow behind the dirty town, At the corner of its lips are oozing a foul ferruginous slime, Like the toothless tobacco-cramm’d mouth of a hag who enriches the crown By consuming th 'excised weed,---parent of smuggling crime ! II. Tis night; the shivering stars, wrapt in their cloud-blankets dreaming, Forget to light an old crone, who to cross the hollow would try ; But watchful Aldebaran, in Taurus's head swift gleaming, Like a policeman, to help her, turns on his bull's-eye. III. There's a hovel of mud, and the crone, mudded and muddled, Knocks, and an oxidized hinge creaks a rusty “ Come in." There are now in the hovel, -a woman in bed-gear huddled, A careworn man, and a midwife, her functional fee to win. IV. Midwives are hard as millstones: Expectant father's emotions Are dragg'd by the heart's wild tide, like seashore shingle, Shrieking complaint, when the fierce assaults of the ocean Beat them all round, without an exception single. Mr. Punch, having heard that many Conservatives looked upon Lord Randolph Churchill as the " ' Coming Man" of their party, expressed himself as follows:- Ring out fools'-bells to limbo's dome, Which copes the neo-Tory clique ! Tis the true Simon Pure this time ; + I. Ring out oll priile in race and blood, That kept the fierce old fighters right ; Ring in crude slander and small spite, The narrow heart, the rowdy hand. King out the brave, the wise, the grand ! Ring in the Coming Mannikin ! Punch, November 19, 1881. DARKNESS! Darkness! Darkness ! Ebon carved idol of wickedness ! Guilty (leeds do love thee, Innocent childhood fears thee; Therefore these do prove thee An unbless'd thing : ---Who hears thce, Grisly, gaunt, and lonely,Darkness! Darkness ! Darkness ! Thy brother Silence only! Lightness ! Lightness ! Lightness ! Great quality in small things, A pudding, above all things! Great quality in great things, And, not to understate things, Thou art the essence of sunshine, Lightness ! Lightness ! Lightness ! Whose brightnessAnd whitenessAre but lackness Or blackness. Therefore, Darkness ! Darkness! why?--for why ?—for why? I'll speak! Falling is the snow, Every frosty flake Making the round world Like a wedding-cake. What is't makes the snow? Is it frost ? No, no! Petals of the rose That in the heaven grows, Thrown by angels down, In Elysian play, I say, To produce a crown For the bridal day. (“* Drove,” I have said, and it should be “driven Such endless bosh and clamour, And the coals Burn holes, Or make spots like moles, Ind my lily-white tints, as black as your hat turn, And the housemaid (a matricide, will-forging slattern), Rolls The rolls From the plate, in shoals, Like the Peg ! Peg ! This moral spread from me, Sing it, ring it, yelp it- That is if you can help it. Rival Rhymes, in Honour of Burns, 1859, AN EXTRACT (NOT) FROM TENNYSON'S " MAUT," MAUT, SONG, Roar as a chorus sonorous, Robin, bob in at ease; Tom-tit, prompt it for us. Rose or thistle in, whistlin', (What a beast is her brother !) Echo it out, Birds in St. Stephen's garden, Mocking birds, were bawling - They were crying and calling. Gone to Vienna, whither They'd sent him out of the way, Tories and Whigs together. Birds in St. Stephen's sang, Chattering, chattering round him “John is here, here, here, Back too soon, confound him !" They saw his dirty hands! Meekly he bore their punning : John* is not seventy yet, But he's very little and cunning. He to show up himself! How can he ever explain it ? John were certain of place, If shuffling could retain it. Midsummer Madness, A SOLILOQCY. Yes, a rug- Why was I ever woven, Peg! Peg! With a wooden leg, Till countless holes I'm drove in. Look, a cab at the door, Dizzy has snarled for an hour; Our Miscellany: (Which ought to have come out, but didn't). a * Lord John Russell. a ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (continued). GRANNY'S HOUSE. COMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn, Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the dinner horn. 'Tis the place, and all about it, as of old, the rat and mouse Very loudly squeak and nibble, running over Granny's house ; Granny's house, with all its cupboards, and its rooms as neat as wax, And its chairs of wood unpainted, where the old cats rubbed their backs. Many a night from yonder garret window, ere I went to rest, Did I see the cows and horses come in slowly from the west ; Many a night I saw the chickens, flying upward through the trees, Roosting on the sleety branches, when I thought their feet would freeze ; Here about the garden wandered, nourishing a youth sublime With the beans, and sweet potatoes, and the melons which were prime; When the pumpkin-vines behind me with their precious fruit reposed, When I clung about the pear-tree, for the promise that it closed. When I dipt into the dinner far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the pie, and all the dessert that would be. In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In the spring the noisy pullet gets herself another nest ; In the spring a livelier spirit makes the ladies' tongues more glib; In the spring a young boy's fancy lightly hatches up a fib. Then her cheek was plump and fatter than should be for one so old, And she eyed my every motion, with a mute intent to scold, And I said, “My worthy Granny, now I speak the truth to thee, “ Better believe it,--I have eaten all the apples from one there ; you like. Is it well to wish thee happy, having seen thy whip decline On a boy with lower shoulders, and a narrower back than mine? Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the dinner horn, They to whom my Granny's whippings were a target for their scorn ; Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a mouldered string? I am shamed through all my nature to have loved the mean old thing; Weakness to be wroth with weakness ! woman's pleasure, woman's spite, Nature made them quicker motions, a considerable sight. Woman is the lesser man, and all thy whippings matched with mine Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine. Here at least when I was little, something, 0, for some retreat Deep in yonder crowded city where my life began to beat, Where one winter fell my father, slipping off a keg of lard, I was left a trampled orphan, and my case was pretty hard. Or to burst all links of habit, and to wander far and fleet, On from farm-house unto farm-house till I found my Uncle Pete, Larger sheds and barns, and newer, and a better neighbour. hood, Greater breadth of field and woodlands, and an orchard just as good. Never comes my Granny, never cuts her willow switches Boys are safe at Uncle Peter's, I'll bet you what you dare. Hangs the heavy-fruited pear-tree : you may eat just what 'Tis a sort of little Eden, about two miles off the pike. There, methinks, would be enjoyment, more than being quite so near To the place where even in manhood I almost shake with fear. There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have scope and breathing space. I will 'scape that savage woman ; she shall never rear my race; Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive and they shall run ; She has caught me like a wild-goat, but she shall not catch my son. He shall whistle to the dog, and get the books from off the shell, Not, with blinded eyesight, cutting ugly whips to whip himself. Fool again, the dream of fancy ! no, I don't believe it's bliss, But I'm certain Uncle Peter's is a better place than this. Let them herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of all glorious gains, Like the horses in the stables, like the sheep that crop the lanes ; Let them mate with dirty cousins—what to me were style or rank, I the heir of twenty acres, and some money in the bank ? Not in vain the distance beckons, forward let us urge our load, Let our cart-wheels spin till sundown, ringing down the grooves of road; Through the white dust of the turnpike she can't see to give us chase : Better seven years at Uncle's than fourteen at Granny's place. O, I see the blessed promise of my spirit hath not set ! Il we once get in the wagon, we will circumvent her yet. Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Granny's farm : tree.” On her kindling cheek and forehead came a colour and a light, As I have seen the rosy red flashing in the northern night ; And she turned, -her fist was shaken at the coolness of the lie ; She was mad, and I could see it, by the snapping of her eye, Saying, “ I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do thee wrong," Saying, "I shall whip you, Sammy, whipping I shall go it strong." She took me up, and turned me pretty roughly, when she'd done, And every time she shook me, I tried to jerk and run ; She took off my little coat, and struck again with all her might, And before another minute, I was free, and out of sight, Many a morning, just to tease her, did I tell her stories yet, Though her whisper made me tingle, when she told me what Many an evening did I see her where the willow sprouts grew thick, And I rushed away from Granny at the touching of her stick. O my Granny, old and ugly, O‘my Granny's hateful deeds, O the empty, empty garret, О the garden gone to weeds, Crosser than all fancy fathoms, crosser than all songs have sung, I was puppet to your threat, and servile to your shrewish tongue, I'd get ; |