And root out here and there some cumbering elf,
I think I could go through it,
And really do it
With profit to the world and to myself,-
For instance, the unkind among the Editors,
My debtors, those I mean to say
Who cannot or who will not pay,
And all my creditors.
These, for my own sake, I'd destroy;
But for the world's, and every one's,
I'd hoe up Mrs. G-'s two sons,
And Mrs. B-'s big little boy,
Called only by herself an “only joy.”
As Mr. Irving's chapel's not too full,
Himself alone I'd pull-
But for the peace of years that have to run,
I'd make the Lord Mayor's a perpetual station,
And put a period to rotation,
By rooting up all Aldermen but one,-
These are but hints what good might thus be
But ah! I fear the public good
Is little by the public understood,—
For instance-if with flint, and steel, and tender,
Great Swing, for once a philanthropic man,
Proposed to throw a light upon my plan,
No doubt some busy fool would hinder
His burning all the Foundling to a cinder.
Or, if the Lord Mayor, on an Easter Monday,
That wine and bun-day,
Proposed to poison all the little Blue-coats,
Before they died by bit or sup,
Some meddling Marplot would blow up,
Just at the moment critical,
The economy political
Of saving their fresh yellow plush and new
Equally 'twould be undone,
Suppose the Bishop of London,
On that great day
In June or May,
When all the large small family of charity,
Brown, black, or carrotty,
Walk in their dusty parish shoes,
In too, too many two-and-twos,
To sing together till they scare the walls
Of old St. Paul's,
Sitting in red, gray, green, blue, drab, and white,
Some say a gratifying sight,
Tho' I think sad-but that's a schism-
To witness so much pauperism-
Suppose, I say, the Bishop then, to make
In this poor overcrowded world more room,
Proposed to shake
Down that immense extinguisher, the dome-
Some humane Martin in the charity Gal-way
I fear would come and interfere,
Save beadle, brat, and overseer,
To walk back in their parish shoes,
In too, too many two-and-twos,
Islington-Wapping-or Pall Mall way!
Thus, people hatched from goose's egg,
Foolishly think a pest, a plague,
And in its face their doors all shut,
On hinges oiled with cajeput
Drugging themselves with drams well spiced and cloven,
And turning pale as linen rags
At hoisting up of yellow flags,
While you and I are crying "Orange Boven !"
Why should we let precautions so absorb us,
Or trouble shipping with a quarantine—
When if I understand the thing you mean,
We ought to import the Cholera Morbus !
A CERTAIN gentleman, whose yellow cheek
Proclaimed he had not been in living quite
An Anchorite-
Indeed, he scarcely ever knew a well day;
At last, by friends' advice, was led to seek
A surgeon of great note-named Aberfeldie.
A very famous Author upon Diet,
Who, better starred than Alchemists of old,
By dint of turning mercury to gold,
Had settled at his country house in quiet.
Our Patient, after some impatient rambles
Thro' Enfield roads, and Enfield lanes of brambles,
At last, to make inquiry had the nous,—
"Here, my good man,
Just tell me if you can,
Pray which is Mr Aberfeldie's house?"
The man thus stopped-perusing for a while
The yellow visage of the man of bile,
At last made answer, with a broadish grin:
"Why, turn to right—and left-and right agin,
The road's direct-you cannot fail to go it."
"But stop! my worthy fellow !-one word more—
From other houses how am I to know it?"
"How!-why you'll see blue pillars at the door?"
THERE'S NO ROMANCE IN THAT!
"So while I fondly imagined we were deceiving my relations, and flattered myself that I should outwit and incense them all; behold, my hopes are to be crushed at once, by my aunt's consent and approbation, and I am myself the only dupe. But here, Sir-here is the picture!" LYDIA LANGUISH.
O DAYS of old, O days of Knights,
Of tourneys and of tilts,
When love was balked and valour stalked
On high heroic stilts
Where are ye gone ?—adventures cease,
The world gets tame and flat,—
We've nothing now but New Police-
There's no romance in that!
I wish I ne'er had learned to read,
Or Radcliffe how to write;
That Scott had been a boor on Tweed,
And Lewis cloister'd quite !
Would I had never drunk so deep
Of dear Miss Porter's vat;
I only turn to life, and weep—
There's no Romance in that!
No Bandits lurk-no turbaned Turk
To Tunis bears me off-
I hear no noises in the night
Except my mother's cough,-
No Bleeding Spectre haunts the house,
No shape, but owl or bat,
Come fitting after moth or mouse,-
There's no Romance in that!
I have not any grief profound,
Or secrets to confess,
My story would not fetch a pound
For A. K. Newman's press;
Instead of looking thin and pale,
I'm growing red and fat,
As if I lived on beef and ale-
There's no Romance in that!
It's very hard, by land or sea,
Some strange event I court,
But nothing ever comes to me
That's worth a pen's report:
It really made my temper chafe,
Each coast that I was at,
I vowed, and railed, and came home safe,--
There's no Romance in that!
The only time I had a chance
At Brighton one fine day,
My chestnut mare began to prance,
Took fright, and ran away;
Alas! no Captain of the Tenth
To stop my steed came pat;
A Butcher caught the rein at length,—
There's no Romance in that!
Love-even love-goes smoothly on
A railway sort of track-
No flinty sire, no jealous Don!
No hearts upon the rack;
No Polydore, no Theodore
His ugly name is Mat,
Plain Matthew Pratt and nothing more
There's no Romance in that!
He is not dark, he is not tall,—
His forehead's rather low,
He is not pensive-not at all,
But smiles his teeth to show;
He comes from Wales and yet in size
|