TENNYSON AT BILLINGSGATE IN 1882.
(Apropos of the Ring of Wholesale Fish Dealers.)
TAKE! Take! Take!
Oh grabber of swag from the sea,
And I shouldn't quite like to utter
The thoughts that occur to me!
Oh, ill for the fisherman poor
That he toils for a trifle all day,
And ill for the much-diddled public
That has through the nose to pay.
And the swelling monopolist drives
To his villa at Haverstock Hill,
But it's O for the number of poor men's lives
Food-stinted to plump his till!
Take! Take! Take!
Oh grabber of swag from the sea,
But you'll render a reckoning one of these days
To the public and Mr. P.
In June, 1882, the Editor of The Weekly Dispatch awarded a prize of Two Guineas to M. Percivale, for a parody on Locksley Hall. The somewhat uncomplimentary allusions to a young Æsthetic poet are too obvious to require any elucidation.
Cousins, leave me here a little, in lawn tennis you excel;
Leave me here, you only bore me, I shall come at "luncheon bell!"
'Tis the place (but rather older)—I was in my eighteenth year,
When I first met utter Oscar, and I thought him such a dear!
How about the beach I wandered, listening while that youth sublime
Spouted verses by the dozen, which he said he wrote for Time.
But his form was somewhat fatter than should be for one so young,
And his round eyes spoke the language of his glib and oily tongue.
In the spring the fleshly poet writes a sweet and soothing sonnet:
In the spring a wise young woman buys a more becoming bonnet.
And he said, "Oh, have you anything in Consols or Per Cents.?
For my property's in Ireland, and I cannot get the rents?"
Oh, my Oscar! Impecunious! Oh, intense!—if nothing worse—
Oh, those too-too precious poems! Oh, that too-too empty purse!
Then I said, "I've an allowance from an old maternal aunt,
Just enough for dress; but as to victuals—no, I really can't!"
And he turned, his face was frightful, pale with anger for poor me;
Was it fancy that he muttered something like a big, big D—?
* * * * *
As my husband is, his wife is, rich, the envy of the town;
How a life in shabby lodgings would have dragged my spirit down!
How my beauty would have faded, growing daily paler, thinner!
Making puddings, washing clothing, planning for the children's dinner.
Comes the butler, "Lunch is ready, madam!" iced champagne, I know,
Mayonnaise and lobster salad; I am hungry and—I go.
Here is another, and an earlier, imitation of the same original:—