Fytte ye Second
When the weather is hazy, and not the least sign in
The clouds of their showing a silvery lining;
When a bill’s coming due, and you’ve no chance of meeting it;
When old Harry’s to pay, and the pitch has no heat in it;
When you’re thinking of popping, and suddenly find
That your inamorata’s not that way inclined;
When you’ve published a novel, and find it don’t sell;
When you rise from the wine cup, and don’t feel quite well;
When some six-feet-six monster, by jealousy led,
Suggests “satisfaction” or “punching your head;”
When your wife’s taken cross, or the “olive-branch” sick;
When your wardrobe’s worn out, and your tailor wont “tick;”
When your money’s all gone, and your creditors dun for it;
I think you’ll agree,
That the best plan will be
To (I speak in the language of slang) “cut and run for it.”
Thus, then, reason’d Yolenta of Corteryke, but
With this difference, she “ran” to avoid the “cut”
Of all cuts “most unkindest” (bad grammar, you know,
When it’s written by Shakespeare no longer is so),
Which De Rodon had promised her, axe-ing her hand,
In a manner no woman of feeling could stand
With composure; so straightway Yolenta resolved
To make herself scarce, which manœuvre involved
Much domestic confusion; each man and each maid
Requiring their wages, and board-wages, paid
For a month in advance; while the butler grew crusty
As his oldest port wine; and fair Bettye cried “Must I
Be the cause of this woe—from my dear mistress sever—
Lose my place and my perquisites! which my endeavour
Has still been to draw mild. Well, I never did—never!”
(Then addressing the public at large) “Did you ever?”
These arrangements concluded, Yolenta began
Packing up—the last duty of travelling man—
But the business of life
To maid, widow, or wife,
Except Ida Pfeiffer, that wonder, who can
With umbrella and tooth-brush, reach far Yucatan,
And, like Ariel, span
The earth with a girdle, which some commentator
On Shakespeare imagines must mean the Equator.
Well, she packed up her traps in a leathern valise,
Which contained sundry stockings, a nice new ⸺, but he’s
No gentleman, clearly, who’d Hobbs-like, the locks
Endeavour to pick of so private a box.
Then, by way of disguise, Dame Yolenta decided
(Don’t be horrified, dear lady-readers, though I did
Myself think it strange that my heroine chose
To set out on her rambles attired in such clothes),
For convenience of trav’lling, perhaps, to assume a
Man’s dress—not the epicene compromise, Bloomer,
But the regular masculine propria quæ maribus,
A male coat, a male waistcoat, et ceteris paribus,
A gay cap and feather,
Unfit for bad weather,—
A sword by her side, and a fine prancing horse,
Which she sat, I’m afraid, not “aside” but “across;”
With one groom to attend her—
Nought else to defend her—
Like a “Young Lochinvar” of the feminine gender,
The ill-fated Yolenta rode off at a canter,
And became what the stockbrokers term “a levanter.”
Now you’ll please to suppose,
That she follow’d her nose,
A fine aquiline organ that proudly arose,
Filling just the right space
On her bright sparkling face,
Excelling, as butterfly’s better than grub,
Those unlucky “retroussés” in plain English, “snub,”
Which men always pretend to, and often desire,
But never can really and truly admire;
She followed her nose
To (I blush to disclose
For it does seem so forward; but then no one knows
The whys and the wherefores, the cons and the pros,
Which decide other folks; in the fair sex our trust is
Extreme; so we’ll strive not to do her injustice.)
For some reason unknown, then, she followed her nose
To the camp of King Charles, in which Loridon chose
To wear out his exile, and solace his woes,
By assisting that monarch to conquer his foes.
It were long to relate
All the evils that Fate
Seemed resolved to pour down on our heroine’s pate;
How, on reaching the camp,
She was told that a scamp
Of a Douanier, at the last town she quitted,
Had, as usual, omitted
To see that her passport was legally visé’d;
Although, when she handed his fees to him, he said
It was all right and proper,
And no one would stop her;
Which was false, for it quickly appeared by the law
Of the strong, she was somebody’s prisoner of war;
Next, for fear in her wrath she a breach of the peace
Should commit, or attempt to assault the police,
They disarmed her—laid hands on her watch, chain, and seal
(All the very best gold, and the watch not much thicker
Than a mod’rate sized turnip—no end of a ticker,)
And hurried her off to the then Pentonville
Model Prison, to wait, all forlorn and alone,
And to “carve her name on the Newgate stone,”
Till this terrible somebody’s pleasure was known.
The unpleasant unknown was one Giles de Laval,
A marshal of France, and a very great “pal”
(Or paladin rather), of King Charles le Beau,
(Or “le Gros,” or “le Sot,”
Which, I really don’t know;
But ’twas one of the three, for there’s no nation showers
Such peculiar nicknames on its “governing powers”
As our trusty ally Monsieur Johnny Crapaud,)
This same Giles de Laval, then, who ruled the French host,
And the roast, and the coast, made the most of his post;
Dealt just as he chose
With his friends and his foes,
And was as autocratic, and nearly as fickle as,
That bugbear of Europe, a certain Czar Nicholas—
This identical Giles, for some reason he had,
Seemed resolved that Yolenta should “go to the bad:”
(He possessed such sharp eyes
They pierced through her disguise
At first sight, to her terror, and shame, and surprise),
So he scolded her well, wouldn’t hear her confessions,
But returned her, to answer for all her transgressions,
To Geraldus, in time for the next quarter sessions.
Unhappy Yolenta! Geraldus confined her
In a dungeon, deep, damp, and unpleasant; behind her
Was a ring in the wall, and some rusty old chains,
And there lay in one corner a skull void of brains,
And a horrid leg-bone stood upright in another,
Which must once have belonged to “a man and a brother;”
Then a sturdy support, now a most “unreal mockery,”
A relic suggestively placed there to shock her eye,
And bid her prepare for the doom that awaited her,—
For her dinner they brought her,
Dry bread and cold water,
Wretched food, and by no means enlivening drink,
(Whatever hydraulic George Cruikshank may think
To the contrary,) then, lest they’d not aggravated her
By this treatment, enough, the brutes next dissipated her
Last agreeable illusion, a letter was given her,
Signed and sealed by some friendly (?) anonymous scrivener,
Short, not sweet, for the missive consisted of one
Line, “The Lord Lettelhausen’s no longer a son,”—
From which pleasant allusion,
She reached the conclusion,
That, by some vicious dodge, which she could not discover,
De Laval had “used up” and expended her lover.
Unhappy Yolenta! forsaken, heart-broken,
She drew from her bosom a cherished love-token;
A dark curling lock of her Loridon’s hair,
Fix’d her eyes on it, shed o’er it tears of despair,
Then devoured it with kisses, and dropp’d on her knees,
To implore with deep fervour that Heaven would please
Pardon Loridon’s sins, forgive hers, and so let her
Rejoin, and remain with, one whom she loved better
Far than life; then o’ercome by conflicting emotions,
A fainting fit ended her tears and devotions.
Alas! it is a cruel thing to die,
To leave these hopes and fears, these loves and hates,
For other, though it may be happier, fates;
To go we know not where, we know not why!
To cease to be the thing that we have been,
To be perchance a higher, but a new,
To leave the few we love, the chosen few,
To quit for ever each familiar scene.
To be perchance a lower, to be curst,
For God, who’s great and merciful, is just,
And we, alas! what are we, that we must
By right partake the best, escape the worst?
It is a very bitter thing to die!
To some it is a bitter thing to live!
Patience and faith alone can comfort give,
Patience and faith—the rainbows in the sky.