The Humorous Poetry of the English Language; from Chaucer to Saxe Part 4

An ill-spelt note from Tom at school, Begging I'll let him learn the fiddle; Another from that precious fool, Miss Pyefinch, with a stupid riddle.

"D'ye give it up?" Indeed I do!

Confound those antiquated minxes: I won't play "Billy Black" to a "Blue,"

Or OEdipus to such old sphinxes.

A note sent up from Kent to show me, Left with my bailiff, Peter King; "I'll burn them precious stacks down, blow me!

"Yours most sincerely, "CAPTAIN SWING."

Four begging letters with pet.i.tions, One from my sister Jane, to pray I'll execute a few commissions In Bond-street, "when I go that way."

"And buy at Pearsall's in the city Twelve skeins of silk for netting purses: Color no matter, so it's pretty;-- Two hundred pons"--two hundred curses!

From Mistress Jones: "My little Billy Goes up his schooling to begin, Will you just step to Piccadilly, And meet him when the coach comes in?

"And then, perhaps, you will as well, see The poor dear fellow safe to school At Dr. Smith's in Little Chelsea!"

Heaven send he flog the little fool!

From Lady Snooks: "Dear Sir, you know You promised me last week a Rebus; A something smart and apropos, For my new Alb.u.m?"--Aid me, Phoebus!

"My first is follow'd by my second; Yet should my first my second see, A dire mishap it would be reckon'd, And sadly shock'd my first would be.

"Were I but what my whole implies, And pa.s.s'd by chance across your portal You'd cry 'Can I believe my eyes?

I never saw so queer a mortal!'

"For then my head would not be on, My arms their shoulders must abandon; My very body would be gone, I should not have a leg to stand on."

Come that's dispatch'd--what follows?--Stay "Reform demanded by the nation; Vote for Tagrag and Bobtail!" Ay, By Jove a blessed REFORMATION!

Jack, clap the saddle upon Rose-- Or no!--the filly--she's the fleeter; The devil take the rain--here goes, I'm off--a plumper for Sir Peter!

THE POPLAR.

R. HARRIS BARHAM.

Ay, here stands the Poplar, so tall and so stately, On whose tender rind--'twas a little one then-- We carved HER initials; though not very lately, We think in the year eighteen hundred and ten.

Yes, here is the G which proclaimed Georgiana; Our heart's empress then; see, 'tis grown all askew; And it's not without grief we perforce entertain a Conviction, it now looks much more like a Q.

This should be the great D too, that once stood for Dobbin, Her lov'd patronymic--ah! can it be so?

Its once fair proportions, time, too, has been robbing; A D?--we'll be DEED if it isn't an O!

Alas! how the soul sentimental it vexes, That thus on our labors stern CHRONOS should frown Should change our soft liquids to izzards and Xes, And turn true-love's alphabet all upside down!

SPRING.

A NEW VERSION.

THOMAS HOOD.

"HAM. The air bites shrewdly--it is very cold.

HOR. It is a nipping and eager air."--HAMLET.

Come, GENTLE Spring! ethereal MILDNESS, come!

O! Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason, How couldst thou thus poor human nature hum?

There's no such season.

The Spring! I shrink and shudder at her name!

For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter!

And suffer from her BLOWS as if they came From Spring the Fighter.

Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing, And be her tuneful laureates and upholders, Who do not feel as if they had a SPRING Poured down their shoulders!

Let others eulogize her floral shows; From me they can not win a single stanza.

I know her blooms are in full blow--and so's The Influenza.

Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale, Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at, Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale, Are things I sneeze at!

Fair is the vernal quarter of the year!

And fair its early buddings and its blowings-- But just suppose Consumption's seeds appear With other sowings!

For me, I find, when eastern winds are high, A frigid, not a genial inspiration; Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb, defy An inflammation.

Smitten by breezes from the land of plague, To me all vernal luxuries are fables, O! where's the SPRING in a rheumatic leg, Stiff as a table's?

I limp in agony--I wheeze and cough; And quake with Ague, that great Agitator, Nor dream, before July, of leaving off My Respirator.

What wonder if in May itself I lack A peg for laudatory verse to hang on?-- Spring, mild and gentle!--yes, a Spring-heeled Jack To those he sprang on.

In short, whatever panegyrics lie In fulsome odes too many to be cited, The tenderness of Spring is all my eye, And that is blighted!

ODE.

ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF CLAPHAM ACADEMY.

THOMAS HOOD.

Ah me! those old familiar bounds!

That cla.s.sic house, those cla.s.sic grounds, My pensive thought recalls!

What tender urchins now confine, What little captives now repine, Within yon irksome walls!

Ay, that's the very house! I know Its ugly windows, ten a row!

Its chimneys in the rear!

And there's the iron rod so high, That drew the thunder from the sky And turned our table-beer!