THE RINKER
By Alfred Tennyson.
I start from home in happy mood,
Arrayed in dress so pretty,
And sparkle out among the men,
Who come up from the City.
But first I linger by the brink,
And calmly reconnoitre,
For when I'm fairly on the rink,
I never care to loiter.
Then "follow me," I loudly call,
At skating I'm so clever,
For men may come, and men may fall,
But I rink on for ever.
I chatter with my little band
Of friends so gay and hearty,
And sometimes we go hand in hand,
And sometimes in a party.
I slip, I slide, I glance, I glide,
There is no one can teach me,
I give them all a berth full wide,
And not a soul can reach me.
I chatter, chatter, to them all,
At skating I'm so clever,
For men may come, and men may fall,
But I rink on for ever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a figure tracing.
And here and there I dance about,
And here I go a-racing.
I'm always making graceful curves,
As everyone alleges.
And while I've nerve, I'll never swerve,
From in and outside edges.
And after me I draw them all,
At skating I'm so clever,
For men may come, and men may fall,
But I rink on for ever.
I now come to a clever and most amusing little work entitled Puck on Pegasus, by H. Cholmondeley-Pennell, which was published about sixteen years ago by the late Mr. John Camden Hotten. In the original edition this work was a small quarto, with numerous illustrations and a characteristic frontispiece designed and etched by dear old George Cruikshank. It has since run through numerous editions, and is now included in the series known as The Mayfair Library, published by Chatto and Windus. It contains the following parodies:—"Song of In-the-Water," after Longfellow; "The Du Chaillu Controversy," after The Bon Gaultier Ballads; "The Fight for the Championship," after Lord Macaulay; "How the Daughters come down at Dunoon," after Robert Southey; "Wus, ever wus," after Tom Moore; "Exexolor!" after Longfellow's Excelsior; "Charge of the Light (Irish) Brigade," after Tennyson.
The incidents referred to in the last-mentioned parody have now somewhat faded from the public memory. It is sufficient to say that the warlike behaviour of the one brigade was quite as great a contrast to the action of the other, as the parody here given presents to the original poem:—