THE MAIDEN'S LAMENT.
After Tennyson (and a long way after, too).
WITH many a care my life's beset,
My charms are growing mellow,
And I have not secured as yet
An eligible fellow.
I sing, I play, and through the dance
I skim like any swallow;
The ladies look at me askance,
And say I'm vain and shallow.
I chatter, chatter as I go,
And some pronounce me clever.
But the men that come they're awfully slow,
And pop the question never, never.
Pop the question never, never,
Pop the question never.
I gad about, and in and out
My hopeless fate bewailing;
And think with secret pain and doubt
Of youth and beauty failing.
A youth there is for whose dear sake
To distant lands I'd travel;
I thought he would an offer make
One evening on the gravel.
He spoke in accents soft and low,
But word of love came never.
The men that come are sure to go,
And some take leave for ever,
Some take leave for ever, ever,
Some take leave for ever.
I strive by many cunning plots,
Their feelings to discover,
And sometimes sweet forget-me-nots
Present to backward lover;
And though with costly gems from far,
I deck my shining tresses,
And though I sing of love and war,
And sport becoming dresses,
'Tis all in vain this idle show,
I'll gain their favour never.
For men may come and men may go,
But I'm stuck fast for ever,
I'm stuck fast for ever, ever,
I'm stack fast for ever.
The Harborne Parish Church Bazaar News (Birmingham), September 26, 1874.
Flow down, old river, to the sea,
Thy tribute-muck deliver!
But lake this comfort, Thames, from Me,
This shan't go on for ever!
Punch, August 23, 1884.
OUR RIVER (A TENNYSONIAN IDYLL).
OLD FATHER THAMES, loq.
"'I COME from haunts of coot and hern,'
From 'neath green ferns I sally;
But into me they quickly turn
The sewage of my valley!
"By fifty sewer mouths I pass—
My surface black with midges;
And bubbles huge of sewage gas
Float down beneath my bridges.
"When first I babble o'er the lea,
As crystal clear I chatter;
But twenty towns soon poison me
With foul organic matter.
"Till last by Barking Creek I go,
A thick, pestiferous river;
And tides may ebb, and tides may flow,
But I smell on for ever!
"I fill with scum my little bays,
I coat with slime my pebbles;
The mud I leave on winter days
The summer drought soon trebles.
"With many a stench the air I fill,
With many an odour fetid;
And epidemics I distil
Throughout the dog-days heated.
"I churn contagion as I go,
A foul, filth-sodden river;
For tides may ebb, and tides may flow,
But I smell on for ever!
"I wind about, and in and out,
With here a dead cat floating,
And here a party seized, past doubt,
With sickness whilst they're boating.
"And Water Companies extract
My water as I travel,
Till I for miles am nought, in fact,
But banks of mud and gravel.
"In short, if they thus pump me dry,
And list to reason never,
Whilst Londoners are talking, I
Shall just flow off for ever!
"As 'tis, the fish are well nigh killed
In all my urban reaches;
And places once with gudgeon filled
Are now too dry for leeches.
"I ruin lawns and grassy plots
By foul deposits spreading;
I blight the sweet forget-me-nots
From Twickenham to Reading.
"I crawl, I creep, I smell, I smear,
Amongst my oozy shallows;
I so pollute the atmosphere
It quite knocks-up the swallows.
"I grow each season more impure,
As every one's remarking;
I am an open running sewer
From Teddington to Barking.
"And so upon my course I go,
A foul, pestiferous river,
And tides may ebb, and tides may flow,
But I smell on for ever!"
Truth, July 31, 1884.