THE LAWN-TENNIS PARTY AT PEPPERHANGER.
(A fragment in the metre of Longfellow's "Hiawatha.")
I was sitting in my wigwam,
Looking from my lofty wigwam,
On the fir-clad hill of Dryburgh,
O'er the vale of Pepperhanger.
Suddenly there came a rapping,
Double rapping, double tapping,
Sounding through the little wigwam,
Startling quiet Pepperhanger.
Thus the Government Messénjah,
Mercury of brazen buttons,
Crimson-collared, azure-coated,
Blue as when some ancient Briton,
As enlightenment came o'er him,
Thinking skin was rather shabby,
Went and put a coat of Woad on.
He, the carrier of all letters,
He the bearer of all tidings
To the lofty hill of Dryburgh,
To the vale of Pepperhanger.
Swiftly then I took the letter;
Eagerly I read the message
From a hospitable lady
Of the vale of Pepperhanger,
"Come at four o'clock to tiffin,
If no better action urges;
In the cool of Tuesday evening,
Come and play a game of Tennis
On my lawns at Pepperhanger."
Thus her letter: then I sallied
To her almost hidden wigwam.
Which from East and rude Sou'-wester
Evergreen the pine-tree shelters;
Took my Tennis shoes of rubber,
Mocassins of Indian rubber,
Racket, too, of Horace Bayley,
To the tournament of Tennis
On the lawns of Pepperhanger.
Came the lordly Tennyslornah.
Came the Reverend B. A. Kander,
Came the cute 'un, Charley Pleycynge,
Came the smasher, young de Vorley,
Came the great Sir V. O. Verandah,
Came the warrior, Foragh Biscoe,
Strangers from a distant countrie,
To the tournament of Tennis
In the vale of Pepperhanger.
There we had a game at Tennis,
Outdoor Tennis let us call it,
Lest the lords of real Tennis
Should invoke a curse upon us;
Hotly smote the fierce back-hander,
Volleyed toward, also froward,
Till the speeding ball appeared as
One continuous flash of lightning:
Shouted loudly cries of Tennis,
"Forty-thirty" and "advantage,"
Giving fifteen, owing thirty
For a bisque, anon half-thirty
Owing, giving, taking, wanting,
Till the brain was almost reeling,
Handicapping calculations
All too hard for Pepperhanger!
Presently the tea-bell sounded
Through the pine-tree-shelter'd gardens
To the ne'er inebriating
Ever cheering goblet summons.
From Pastime, August 24, 1883.
The late Mr. Shirley Brooks composed a number of clever parodies, many of which were contributed to Punch during his Editorship of that journal. Three of the longest and most amusing of these were The Very Last Idyll, after Tennyson; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, after Coleridge; and The Song of Hiawatha, after Longfellow. A quotation from The Very Last Idyll was given on page 44; and the parody on Coleridge will be quoted when that author is reached; the parody of Longfellow, which appeared in Punch as far back as 1856, commenced thus:—