WAGGAWOCKY

'TWAS Maytime, and the lawyer coves

Did jibe and jabber in the wabe,

All menaced were the Tichborne groves,

And their true lord, the Babe.

"Beware the Waggawock, my son,

The eyelid twitch, the knees' incline,

Beware the Baignet network, spun

For gallant Ballantine."

He took his ton-weight brief in hand,

Long time the hidden clue he sought,

Then rested he by the Hawkins tree,

And sat awhile in thought.

And as in toughish thought he rocks,

The Waggawock, sans truth or shame,

Came lumbering to the witness box,

And perjured out his Claim.

"Untrue! untrue!" Then, through and through

The weary weeks he worked the rack;

But March had youth, ere with the Truth

He dealt the final whack.

"And hast thou slain the Waggawock

Come to my arms, my Beamish Boy!

O Coleridge, J.! Hoorah! hooray!"

Punch chortled in his joy.

Shirley Brooks.