When shall their glory fade?
O, what a meal they made!
Cockneydom wondered.

Honour the Charge they made-
Bravo the Light Brigade!

Hearty Two Hundred !

Punch, November 6, 1875.

ON THE 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.

Forward the fair trio !
Was a false step made? No!
Not tho' they all knew

Some one had tumbled.
Theirs but to give a sigh,
Theirs but to let him lie,
Theirs but to pass him by,
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.

Flash'd all their eyes so bright,
Flash'd as they turned in air,
Wounding every fellow there,
With a glance to left and right,
Other girls envying.

"Waltzing" and "

Mercury stroke,"

Straight through the line they broke, Whirling and twirling,

Light as the fairy folk,

Twisting and turning,

Then they skate back, but not,

Not alone the fair trio.

Admirers to right of them,

Admirers to left of them,
Admirers on all sides of them,
Wonder'd and wonder'd.
Refreshed with coffee and tea,
Sweet cake, but no "Cherry B."
They whom none excel,

They who deserve so well,
They who no scandal tell,
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;

Applaud all the skill displayed,
Admire the fair trio,
Charming fair trio.

The Figaro, April 10, 1876.

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, 'tis the Christmas luck,
Eat a whole turkey!"
Little thought they of pain,
Filled they the plate again,
Why would ye not refrain?
On to death, onward!
Death was to right of them,
Death was to left of them,
Death right in front of them,
Death in that conger!
Long did they feast, and well,
How long I cannot tell,
Till they began to yell,
"Cannot eat longer!"

Ate they the tables bare,
Swept they the platter clear,
While the host wondered.
Wrapped in the pudding's smoke,
Right through its midst they broke,
Mince pies were sundered!

Then sank they back; but not

Not the same hundred.

Judy, January 16, 1884.

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!
Eastern and Western and South are we,
But all of us North in our welcome of thee,
ALEXANDRA !
Welcome it, Times and Telegraph fleet;
Welcome it, Echo, that sells in the street :
Break, Daily News, into rhetoric's flower;
Make "

copy," O Standard, and new budded Hour!
Blazon advertisements, concert and play,
Ballet, with Lancers, sportive and gay;
Bertram and Roberts, famed for supply,
Cut from the joint, or savoury pie,
Ices and jellies and nourishing things;
Speckman's wonderful Hall of the Kings;
Warble, O bugle, and trumpet blare,
Flags flutter out upon turrets and towers,
Clash, ye bells, in the rainy May air-
Welcome, welcome, this Palace of ours!
Palace of corridor, vestibule, hall,
Lofty in roofing, with pillars so tall,

Meet for dining and dancing; and, O!
Fireworks-the brightest that mortal may know;
Reach to the roof sudden rocket, and higher,

Melt into stars for the crowd's desire ;

Flash, ye rockets, in showers of fire,
Flaming comets shoot swift on the wire-
Welcome it, welcome it, land and sea;

O joy to the populace yet unknown,

We come to thee, love, and make thee our own-
For Camden, Camberwell, Bloomsburee,
Highgate, Belgravia, or Battersea,

We are all of us Muswell in welcome of thee,

ALEXANDRA !
Funny Folks, May 15, 1875.

C.

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:

:

And much the people marvelled when

That embryon thing should leap to view!
And "what is it," and "whereunto?"
Rang frequent in the mouths of men.
"This babbler! is he not to blame?
Or will he, in the cycled course
Of Time, with circumstance and force
Invest this nothing of a name?"

And one his thought would thus declare,
"Our fooling makes this fellow blithe,
He joys to see conjecture writhe
And flutter in the wordy snare."

Thereat one wiselier-" Watch and see
(When Time be ripe, which now is rathe)
His Titan-touch unfold the swathe
That darkly wraps the great 'To be.'"

Shine forth yet undiscovered star!

Shed largess of all precious balms!
We dimly grope with vacant palms
And wondering wait thy Avatar.
Thou cam'st by Prejudice withstood

In vain, and lulling doubt to sleep:
But one-yet two in one-the cheap
Divinely wedded to the good.
A thing of beauty, form combined
With soul phlogistic, sent to cloy
Our Eon, with Promethean joy:-
A joy from central darkness mined.

Of regions haunted by the Hun;

Thence baled with cost of countless gold
To Lambeth's marish, and in mould
Of seeming-waxen tapers run:

Whose radiance is as that of moons
Innumerous, making day of night;
With most intensity of light,
Emblazing fashion's gay saloons.
When sound of midnight morrice rings
On floor and roof, and all is noise,
Of jubilant Ophicleids, hautboys,
Clear twanging harp, and fiddle strings.
And shapes of silver-bosomed girls,
In bacchant revel wheeling, trace
The waltz with sweet disordered grace
Of twinkling feet and flashing curls.

sages

IN MEMORIAM TECHNICAM.
I count it true wi
which teach-.
That passion sways not with repose,
That love, confounding these with those,
Is ever welding each with each.
And so when time has ebbed away,

Like childish wreaths too lightly held,
The song of immemorial eld

Shall moan about the belted bay,
Where slant Orion slopes his star,

To swelter in the rolling seas,
Till slowly widening by degrees,
The grey climbs upward from afar,
And golden youth and passion stray
Along the ridges of the strand-
Not far apart, but hand in hand-
With all the darkness danced away!

Verc Vercker's l'engeance. By Thomas Hood, the younger. 1865.

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
A weather-washerwoman ply.
Wring out the old, wring in the new,
Wring, weather-washerwoman, so,

That wet 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 bellies in the usual way.

Wring out my mouchoir, damp with flow
Of constant cold through warp and woof,
Bring in a patent waterproof,
Through whose seams raindrops will not go.
Wring out the shirts, wring out the skin,
To which I've been wet many times;
King out the raindrops' pattering chimes,
And bring some drier weather in!

Punch, December 28, 1872.

A NEW 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,

King out the women's "tie-back" frocks!

Mr. Punch, having heard that many Conservatives looked upon Lord Randolph Churchill as the " Coming Man" of their party, expressed himself as follows:

King out fools'-bells to limbo's dome,
Which copes the neo-Tory clique !
The man is coming whom they seek!
Ring out fools'-bells, and let him come!
Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring jangling bells a Bedlam chime;
'Tis the true Simon Pure this time;
King in the chief of Gnatdom's crew!

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. By the P-t L-te. I.

I HATE the dreadful 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.

I.

2.

DARKNESS! Darkness! Darkness!
Ebon carved idol of wickedness!
Guilty deeds do love thee,

Innocent childhood fears thee;

Therefore these do prove thee

An unbless'd thing!--Who hears thee,

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 brightness-

And whitenessAre but lackness

Of blackness.

Therefore, Darkness! Darkness!
Ebon-carved idol of wickedness!
Let those who love you

And Silence, prove you
And seek!

Not I!

For 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,
Make the snow, I say,

To produce a crown

For the bridal day.

Rival Rhymes, in Honour of Burns, 1859.

From the plate, in shoals,

When they're put to warm in front of the coals;
And no one with me condoles,

For the butter stains on my beautiful pattern.
But the coals and rolls, and sometimes soles,
Dropp'd from the frying-pan out of the fire,
Are nothing to raise my indignant ire,
Like the Peg! Peg!

Of that horrible man with the wooden leg.

This moral spread from me,
Sing it, ring it, yelp it—
Never a hearth-rug be,

That is if you can help it.

CHIRRUP, chirp, chirp, chirp twitter,

Warble, flutter, and fly away;

Dicky birds, chickey birds-quick, ye bird,

Shut it up, cut it up, die away.

Maud is going to sing!

Maud with the voice like lute-strings,

(To which the sole species of string

I know of that rhymes is boot-strings).

Still, you may stop, if you please;

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!)

Maud has sung from her tongue rung;

Echo it out,

From each shoot shout,

From each root rout

64

She'll oblige us with another."

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 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 I'd get;

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, O the garden gone to weeds, Crosser than all fancy fathoms, crosser than all songs have

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 dinnerhorn,

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, O, 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 there;

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 you like.

'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

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 shelf,

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!
If we once get in the wagon, we will circumvent her yet.
Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Granny's
farm: