THE SUBJECTS OF SONG.
MULETEER! my Muleteer!
you haunt me in my slumber!
Through ballads (oh, so many!)
and through songs (oh, such
a number!):
You scale the Guadarrama—
you infest the Pyrenees,
And trot through comic operas
in four and twenty keys.
I hum of you, and whistle too;
I vainly try to banish
The million airs that you pervade in English, French, and
Spanish.
I hold your dark Pepitas and your mules immensely dear,
But you begin to bore me, O eternal Muleteer!
O Gondolier! my Gondolier! pray quit the Adriatic;
That cold lagoon will make me soon incurably asthmatic.
Enough of barcarolling when the moon is in the skies;
I'm sick of the Rialto and I hate the Bridge of Sighs.
Your craft may suit, on summer nights, the songster or the
dreamer;
But, both for speed and elegance, give me the penny steamer.
Your city is romantic, but your songs begin, I fear,
To pall upon me sadly, O eternal Gondolier!
O Cavalier! my Cavalier! for ages and for ages
You 've glared upon me darkly out of scores of title-pages:
I've join'd in all your battles, in your banquets, and your loves
(Including one occasion when you found a pair of gloves:)
I've seen you kiss and ride away—most cowardly behaviour!
But then, to damsels in distress I've seen you act the saviour.
You 're vastly entertaining; but I fancy that I hear
A deal too much about you, O eternal Cavalier!