NURSERY RHYMES.
A learned dissertation might be written—entitled “The Wisdom of our Nursery Rhymes”—which should go to prove that every important Rhyme was either founded on some historical basis, or illustrated an old custom of our forefathers long since fallen into oblivion.
Such an essay would be out of place here, but a few notes will be inserted to show the undoubted antiquity of such of the principal Nursery Rhymes as have given rise to the Parodies to be quoted.
Parodies of Nursery Rhymes exist in such numbers that only a small percentage can be inserted, especially as some of the best are of a political and personal nature, and rapidly become obsolete.
The selection has been made as carefully and impartially as possible, with indications as to where such other Parodies may be found as have had to be omitted.
Some of our Nursery Rhymes owe their origin to names distinguished in our literature; as Oliver Goldsmith, for instance, is believed in his earlier days to have written such compositions. Dr. E. F. Rimbault gives the following particulars as to some well-known favourites; “Sing a Song of Sixpence,” he states, is as old as the 16th century. “The Frog and the Mouse” was licensed in 1580. “London Bridge is broken Down” is of unfathomed antiquity. “Girls and Boys come out to Play” is certainly as old as the reign of Charles II.; as is also “Lucy Locket lost her Pocket,” to the tune of which the American song of “Yankee Doodle” was written. “Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, where have you been?” is of the age of Queen Bess. “Little Jack Horner” is older than the seventeenth century. “The Old Woman Tossed in a Blanket” is of the reign of James II., to which monarch it is supposed to allude.
J. O. Halliwell, in his “Nursery Rhymes of England,” gives the following:—
Three blind mice, see how they run!
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with the carving knife,
Did you ever see such fools in your life?
Three blind mice.
and states that the original is to be found in “Deuteromelia; or, the Second Part of Músicks Melodie,” 4to., London, 1609, where the music is also given.
Many other instances of the antiquity of these rhymes will be found under their respective headings.
Amongst the works on Nursery Rhymes which have been consulted, the following may be recommended to those who take an interest in their origin and history.
The Nursery Rhymes of England, collected by James Orchard Halliwell. London. J. R. Smith. 1844.
Arundines Cami, edited by Henry Drury, A.M. Cambridge, 1841. This contains Latin translations of many Nursery Rhymes, of which a few are given in the following pages.
Nursery Rhymes Revised. By J. W. Palmer, 281, Strand, London, 1885.
A Paper on Nursery Rhymes, by Alfonzo Gardiner, see parts VIII. & IX. Yorkshire Notes and Queries, 1887.
The Gladstone Umbrella, or Political Dainties. An illustrated pamphlet, curious as having been published (in 1885) by Mr. Bernard Quaritch, whose name seldom appears in connection with anything so ephemeral as a political skit.
The People’s William. London. W. H. Allen & Co.
Parody Competitions on Nursery Rhymes—
Truth—October 15, 1885; September 30, 1886; June 14, 1888; June 28, 1888.
The Weekly Dispatch—April 13, 1884; July 5, 1885; October 2, 1887.
One and All—Various dates, from 1879 to 1881. These were all political, and are now of no interest.
——:o:——
THIS IS THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.
This is the house that Jack built.
This is the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
* * * * *
This is the farmer sowing his corn,
That kept the cock that crow’d in the morn
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tatter’d and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
Very few would suspect that “The House that Jack built” is a comparatively modern version of an ancient Jewish hymn, sung at the feast of the Passover. Yet such is the case, according to the late Dr. Halliwell Phillips, who gives the following translation of the allegorical Talmudic Hymn, taken from Sepher Haggadah, folio 23. This, he says, was first translated by Professor P. N. Leberecht, of Leipsic, in 1731. The original, from which the Hebrew version was translated, is in the Chaldaic language.
1. A kid, a kid my father bought,
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
2. Then came the cat and ate the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
3. Then came the dog, and bit the cat,
That ate the kid,
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
4. Then came the staff, and beat the dog
That bit the cat,
That ate the kid,
That my father bought,
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
5. Then came the fire, and burned the staff
That beat the dog, &c.,—as before.
6. Then came the water and quenched the fire.
That burned the staff,
That beat the dog, &c.
7. Then came the ox, and drank the water,
That quenched the fire, &c.
8. Then came the butcher and slew the ox
That drank the water, &c.
9. Then came the Angel of death
And killed the butcher
That slew the ox, &c.
10. Then came the Holy One, blessed be He,
And killed the Angel of death
That killed the butcher
That slew the ox
That drank the water
That quenched the fire
That burned the staff
That beat the dog
That bit the cat
That ate the kid
That my father bought
For two pieces of money:
A kid, a kid.
The following is an interpretation of the allegory:—
1. The Kid which is one of the pure animals denotes the Hebrews. The father, by whom it is purchased, is Jehovah, who represents himself as sustaining this relation to the Hebrew nation. The pieces of money signify Moses and Aaron, through whose medium the Hebrews were brought out of Egypt.
2. The Cat denotes the Assyrians by whom the ten tribes were carried into captivity.
3. The dog is symbolical of the Babylonians.
4. The staff signified the Persians.
5. The fire indicates the Grecian Empire under Alexander the Great.
6. The water betokens the Romans, or the fourth of the great monarchies to whom the Jews were subjected.
7. The ox is a symbol of the Saracens who subdued Palestine, and brought it under the Caliphate.
8. The butcher that killed the ox denotes the Crusaders by whom the Holy Land was wrested out of the hands of the Saracens.
9. The Angel of death signifies the Turkish powers by which the land of Palestine was taken from the Franks, to whom it is still subject.
10. The commencement of the tenth stanza is designed to show that God will take signal vengeance on the Turks, immediately after whose overthrow the Jews are to be restored to their own land, and live under the Government of their long expected Messiah.
A somewhat similar accumulative poem to the “House that Jack built” is mentioned in Chodzko’s Popular Poetry of Persia; it runs thus:—
“I went upon the mountain top to tend my flock. Seeing there a girl, I said, ‘Lass, give me a kiss.’ She said, ‘Lad, give me some money.’ I said, ‘The money is in the purse, the purse in the wallet, the wallet on the camel, and the camel in Kerman.’ She said, ‘You wish for a kiss, but the kiss lies behind my teeth, my teeth are locked up, the key is with my mother, and my mother, like your camel, is in Kerman.’”
Sir Richard Burton also gives a translation of an old Arab story called
The Drop of Honey.
Many years ago a hunter found a hollow tree full of bees’ honey, some of which he took home in a water-skin. In the city he sold the honey to an oilman, but in emptying out the honey from the skin, a drop fell to the ground, whereupon the flies flocked to it, and a bird swooped down from the sky upon the flies. Then the oilman’s cat springs upon the bird, and the hunter’s dog flies at the cat, and the oilman kills the dog, and the hunter kills the oilman. Then the men of the respective tribes took up the quarrel, and fight, till there died of them much people, none knoweth their number save almighty Allah!
This favourite nursery rhyme has been more frequently imitated than any other, and has been especially selected as the model on which to form political squibs and satires.
Some of the principal of these were published by W. Hone (illustrated by George Cruikshank), early in the present century, and referred to the matrimonial squabbles of the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.), a topic which possesses so little interest at present that it is not necessary to reprint the parodies. A few of the titles may here be enumerated:—
Loyalists’ House that Jack built.
Real, or Constitutional House that Jack built.
The Queen that Jack found.
The Queen and Magna Charta, or the thing that Jack signed.
The Dorchester Guide, or the House that Jack built.
The Political Queen that Jack loves.
The Political House that Jack built. 1821.[8]
The Theatrical House that Jack built.
“Juvenile reduplications, or the New House that Jack built,” a Parody, by J. Bisalt, with cuts in the manner of T. Bewick. Birmingham, 1800.
One of the rarest imitations is a little octavo religious pamphlet, intended as an answer to atheists and freethinkers, entitled “The Christian House that Jack built by Truth on a Rock,” with portraits of celebrities. 1820.
In 1809, during the O. P. Riots in the new Covent Garden theatre, many parodies were produced, and amongst them one on this nursery rhyme. The riots arose partly from some structural alterations made in the house, but still more from the great increase made in the prices of admission. John Kemble, the manager, and Madame Catalani were the principal objects of public indignation, and the war cries of the rioters were “Old Prices! No Private Boxes! No Catalani! The English Drama!” In the end Kemble had to compromise matters, and Catalani’s name was withdrawn from the bills.
This is the house that Jack[9] built.
These are the boxes let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.
These are the pigeon-holes over the boxes, let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.
This is the Cat[10] engaged to squall to the poor in the pigeon-holes over the boxes, let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.
This is John Bull with a bugle-horn, who hissed the Cat engaged to squall to the poor in the pigeon-holes over the boxes, let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.
This is the thief-taker shaven and shorn, that took up John Bull with his bugle-horn, who hissed the Cat, engaged to squall to the poor in the pigeon-holes over the boxes, let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.
This is the Manager full of scorn, who raised the price to the people forlorn, and directed the thief-taker, shaven and shorn, to take up John Bull with his bugle-horn, who hissed the Cat engaged to squall to the poor in the pigeon-holes over the boxes, let to the great, that visit the house that Jack built.
From The Rebellion; or, All in the Wrong. A serio-comic Hurly-Burly, as it was performed for two months at the New Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, by His Majesty’s servants, the Players, and his liege subjects, the Public. London, Vernor, Hood, & Sharp. 1809.
In The Ingoldsby Lyrics, by R. H. Barham, collected and edited by his son, and published by Richard Bentley and Son, London, in 1881, there are several parodies, which were doubtless very amusing when they first appeared, but they are now all out of date, especially those relating to politics.
| Page | 21. | “I am partial to table and tray.”—Cowper. |
| ” | 43. | On the London University. “The University we’ve got in town.” |
| ” | 181. | “Pity the sorrows of a poor old Church.” |
| ” | 108. | The House that Jack built. |
| ” | 117. | Various Nursery Rhymes. |
| ” | 174. | The House that Jack built. |
The last parody, which originally appeared in The Spectator, refers to the Parliamentary enquiry into the causes of the fire that destroyed the Houses of Parliament in 1834. It commences:—
This is the House that Josh burnt,
These are the sticks that heated the bricks,
That set fire to the house that Josh burnt.
The other parody of The House that Jack built refers to an action that was brought in 1825, against Mr. Peto, a builder, for a breach of contract, in consequence of some failure in the foundations of the new Custom House at London Bridge.
This is the House that Jack built.
This is a sleeper that propped up the House that Jack built.
This is the pile that was short all the while, and wouldn’t go deeper under the sleeper, that propped up the House that Jack built.
This is the Peto appointed to see to, the driving the pile that was short, etc.
* * * * *
This is John Bull with his pockets so full, who “forked out” three hundred thousand pounds for a tumble down house that fell to the ground, and paid all the fees, with a great deal of ease, to all the grave counsellors bouncing and big, every one in a three-tailed wig, who examined George Rennie that wouldn’t give a penny, for all the work, etc., etc.
These parodies are both very long, and the above extracts sufficiently indicate their topics.
“The Palace that N—h built. A parody on an old English Poem,” by I. Hume. A small oblong octavo, with plates. Not dated, but about 1830, as it is a skit on Nash, the architect who built Regent-street, and Buckingham Palace.
A Latin version of “The House that Jack built” appeared in The Hornet in 1872, it was also reprinted in Fun, Ancient and Modern, by Dr. Maurice Davies. London, Tinsley Brothers, 1878. It is too long to be inserted here.
“The Crystal Palace that Fox built” a Pyramid of Rhyme, with illustrations, by John Gilbert. London, David Bogue, 1851.
“These are the workmen, a busy array,
Two thousand and more, as I have heard say,
Who readily, steadily, toiled away,
And finished before the first of May
The Crystal Palace
that Fox built.”
The editor offered an apology for not including the name of Mr. Henderson, as it “would not come into the rhyme.” Messrs. Fox and Henderson were the builders of the 1851 exhibition, in Hyde Park.
The Houses of Parliament.
This is the house that Barry (ought to have) built.
This is the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.
This is the Reid that wasted the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.
This is the architect that snubbed the Reid that wasted the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.
This is the Brougham that worried the architect that snubbed the Reid that wasted the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.
This is the press with its newsman’s horn, that took up the Brougham that worried the architect that snubbed the Reid that wasted the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.
This is the Peerage, all forlorn, that appealed to the press with its newsman’s horn that took up the Brougham that worried the architect that snubbed the Reid that wasted the money laid out on the house that Barry (ought to have) built.
* * * * *
Punch. 1846.
Notwithstanding all the faults found with Barry’s designs, there are really only four good reasons of complaint. The Houses of Parliament are built on too low a site; they are built in a style of architecture totally unsuited for their purposes, and our climate; they are built of a very perishable stone, which is already crumbling to decay; and the chamber in which the Commons meet is only just large enough to accommodate one-half of the members.
The Water that John Drinks.
This is the water that John drinks.
This is the Thames with its cento of stink,
That supplies the water that John drinks.
* * * * *
(Millions of Money.)
This is the price that we pay to wink
At the vested int’rests that fill to the brink,
The network of sewers from cesspool and sink,
That feed the fish that float in the ink-
y stream of the Thames with its cento of stink,
That supplies the water that John does drink.
Punch. 1849.
The Show that Sham Built.
This is the Show that Sham built.
This is the fault that lay in the show, &c.
This is the fat that came of the fault, &c.
This is the hog that eat the fat, &c.
This is the press that worried the hog, &c.
This is the swell, commercially born, who cursed the press, &c.
This is the grammar, all tattered and torn, that belonged to the swell, &c.
This is the feast of much decency shorn, that aired the grammar, &c.
And this is the home, better known as Cremorne,
Fit place for the feast of all decency shorn,
That aired the grammar, all tattered and torn,
That belonged to the swell (commercially born)
That cursed the press,
That worried the hog,
That eat the fat,
That came of the fault,
That lay in the Show,
That Sham built.
The Tomahawk. Nov. 9, 1867. (Lord Mayor’s Day.)
In 1872 a skit on the promoters of the Emma mines was published, as “A New Nursery Ballad, embellished with portraits of some of the most Emma-nent men of the Day.” Salt Lake City, Utah. Published by and for Emma A. Sell. The frontispiece represented Knaves and Asses, and the other illustrations quaintly represented the various events alluded to in the Rhyme:
This is the mine that Lyon struck
* * * * *
These are the Dupes who insanely tore
To subscribe the Sum the Directors swore,
Was worth a Million of Pounds and more,
On the return of the Swell who was sent to explore,
The mine by a general of the army corps,
Who was backed by the Britishers, one, two, three, four,
Who shared with the Yanks from the Eastern shore,
Who joined with the men who had cleared out the ore,
That lay in the mine that Lyon struck.
This is the land of Austra-lia,
These are the mines of silver and gold,
That lay in the land of Austra-lia.
This is the mining captain so bold,
Who prospected the mines of silver and gold, etc.
This is the gallant Companie, founded eighteen and fifty-three,
That sent on the mining captain so bold, etc.
These are the lighthearted gentlemen,
The worthy Board of Directors ten, to the gallant, etc.
This is the gent with his ready pen,
Who was “sec” to the light-hearted gentlemen, etc.
These are the lawyers with their “little bill,”
Messrs. Grab and Snatcher of Diddlegate Hill,
Who got up and “rigged” that Companie, etc.
These are the venturers rushing up stairs
So eager to get an allotment of shares, etc.
This is the Court of Chancerie,
That swallowed that ill-fated Companie, etc.
This is the total dividend, nil,
Left after paying the lawyers bill,
Messrs. Grab and Snatchem of Diddlegate Hill, etc.
These are the shareholders, County and Town,
Looking all of them “done” most uncommonly brown,
As they gaze on the total dividend—nil,
Left after paying the lawyers bill, etc.
Edward Walford, M.A.
Will-o-the-Wisp, a satirical paper, had two amusing parodies, both illustrated, the first, which appeared April 17, 1869, entitled The Protestant House that Jack Built, the second, May 8, 1869, The Comic History of a Comical Ship built by John Bull:—
“This is the Ship that Jack Built.”
The House that John Built.
(Indian Version.)
This the House that John[11] built,
These are the Taxes that lay on the House that John built,
This is the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.
This is the Viceroy that made the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.
These are the Strings that pulled the Viceroy that made the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.
This is Big Ben, with his newspaper horn, who pulled the Strings that pulled the Viceroy that made the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.
This is Britannia, Jingo-borne, who was witched by Big Ben with his newspaper horn, who pulled the Strings that pulled the Viceroy that made the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.
This is the Ameer, all sulks and scorn, who said “No” to Britannia Jingo-borne, who was witched by Big Ben with his newspaper horn, who pulled the Strings that pulled the Viceroy that made the War that eat up the Taxes that lay on the House that John built.
Punch, 1878.
This is the Radical Bradlaugh.
This is the Radical Bradlaugh,
These are electors sturdy and strong,
Who greet him with hearty and welcoming song,
Hurrah for the Radical Bradlaugh!
This is the struggle of Right against Wrong,
Thrice won by electors sturdy and strong,
Who lustily echoed the welcoming song,
Hurrah for the Radical Bradlaugh!
* * * * *
These are the people in whom we must trust
To raise us our liberty out of the dust,
To strive and diminish the deep-lying shame
That now is affixed to the Englishman’s fame,
To kick out the bigots so sorely dismayed
And stop all the cowardly tricks of their trade,
To fight in the battle of Right against Wrong,
And aid the electors sturdy and strong,
Who lustily echoed the welcoming song
To get justice for Radical Bradlaugh.
D. Evans.
The Weekly Dispatch. March 12, 1882.
The Face that Art Made.
This is the Face that Art made!
This is the rouge for the modest blush,
That is stippled on with a hare’s-foot brush,
On the Maiden’s Face that Art made!
This is the Blanc de Perle in paste
That imparts a background purely chaste,
For the Rouge that makes the modest blush,
That is stippled on with the hare’s-foot brush!
On the Maiden’s Face that Art made!
This is the Grenadine that tips
With a cherry red the pouting lips,
To suit the Blanc de Perle in paste,
That imparts a background wholly chaste,
For the Rouge that makes the modest blush,
That is stippled on with a hare’s-foot brush!
On the Maiden’s Face that Art made!
This is the Eau de Violette
(Price 6s. 6d.), the mouth to wet,
When the Grenadine so sweetly tips
With cherry red the pouting lips,
To suit the Blanc de Perle in paste, &c.
On the Maiden’s Face that Art made!
And here’s the Etui Mystérieux,
With its Henna to use pour les beaux yeux,
And its velvet Mouches, which so black will be,
If stuck on the Crème de Fleur de Lis;
And its House-leek Juice to warts remove,
And its Walnut-water to hair improve,
And its wonderful Incarnate de Chine,
To hide where the wrinkle once has been,
And its Powders to frost the locks of hair
Which Sahara Wash has made more fair,
And its bright Eau d’Or to turn to gold
The locks that are bound in a massive fold
Above the forehead, deprived of crease
By the far-famed Crème de l’Impératrice,
And covered as though with a beauteous calm,
By the secret power of the Bagdad Balm;
Above the pupils which Kohhl makes bright,
And Belladonna augments at night,
And to which the Crayon Noir supplies
A finely-arched brow to match the eyes,
And increase the effect of the Bleu pour Veines,
Which imparts such a clear and delicate stain
To the skin enamelled with Blanc de Cygne,
And powdered over with Véloutine,
That enhances the Grenadine, which tips
With a cherry red the pouting lips
To suit the Blanc de Perle (in paste)
That forms a background whitely chaste
For the Rouge’s sympathetic blush
Stippled neatly on with a hare’s-foot brush
On the cheeks, to which Styrian Lotion lends
A plumpness that Nature far transcends,
Of the Maiden’s Face that Art made!
Truth. December 25, 1883.
Another View of a Rookery.
This is the House that any one built!
This is the Cadger who’d ruin the House that any one built.
* * * * *
And this is the Writer whose vigilant care shows poverty’s evils exceptional are, nor visit the men who lead with their wives clean, sober, hard-working, respectable lives, and exposes the Rads, who, by stooping to set poor against rich popularity get, and lay their ills at the rich man’s door, as profits to him at the cost of the poor, and support the Paper that (so it may sell) will foster sensation and shamefully tell the Falsehood that stupidly dares to aver it lies with the rich (who, it says, prefer foul tenants to cleanly, and “bullion” can squeeze from starving wretches and dirt and disease), and not with Drink and improvident ways, that they lost the earnings of happier days, and got those Habits of laziness that led to the Tokens of filth and distress, that mark the Cadger who’d ruin the House that any one built.
A Pen’orth of Poetry for the Poor. London. 1884.
The Bicycle that Jack made.
This is the bicycle that Jack made.
This is the lathe, all polished and true,
That finished the work, kept under-weighed,
For the bicycle that Jack made.
* * * * *
This the gas oxygen—that you cannot see
Which proportions with iron in atoms three,
To make the chemical of formulæ O₃ Fe₂.
That combines in atoms of twenty-eight times two,
To form the ore, gathered out of the pit,
Which was melted in a furnace, blazingly lit,
That made the iron “carbonised” and clean,
Which was “blown” in the “converter” and “puddled” to steel,
That made the metal properly “tempered” through,
Which was put in the lathe, all polished and true,
That finished the work, kept under-weighed,
To complete the bicycle that Jack made.
P. Howell.
Wheeling Annual. 1885.
This is the house that Tithe built;
This is the landlord, healthy and lithe,
That made the tenants under him writhe,
That sent their servants to pay the tithe,
That abused the parsons, all so blithe,
That ruined the men that worked the scythe,
That earned no cash,
That obtained the meat
That they had to eat,
That parsons were sent,
That lay in the house that Tithe built.
Lexicon.
Truth. September 30, 1886.
A very long parody, entitled “This is the House Sir John left!” appeared in Truth, August 20, 1885. It had reference to the cruel custom of people leaving their town houses with their dogs, cats, and other domestic pets improperly cared for during their absence.
These are the Michelstown Murders.
These are the constables brutal and base
That committed the Michelstown Murders.
This is the party that, clinging to place,
Will back up the constables brutal and base
That committed the Michelstown Murders.
This is the bloody undying disgrace
Attached to the party that, clinging to place,
Will back up the constables brutal and base
That committed the Michelstown Murders.
This is the callous, insensible brute
That ordered his men to be “ready to shoot,”
Who shares in the bloody, undying disgrace
Attached to the party that, clinging to place,
Will back up the constables brutal and base
That committed the Michelstown Murders.
* * * * *
These are the Radicals sturdy, with votes,
Who very soon down the Conservative throats
Will cram all the lies that the cowardly crew
Unblushingly utter to carry them through—
Will kick out the callous, insensible brute
That ordered his men to “be ready to shoot,”
Who shares in the bloody undying disgrace
Attached to the party that, clinging to place,
Will back up the constables brutal and base
That committed the Michelstown Murders.
D. Evans.
The Weekly Dispatch. October 2, 1887.
This is the Toy
That was packed in the hamper Truth sent
This is the Boy
That played with the toy
That was packed in the hamper Truth sent.
This is the Pain
That worried the Boy
’Till he played with the Toy
That was packed in the hamper Truth sent.
This is the Doctor who tried in vain
To take away the distressing Pain
That worried the Boy
Till he played with the Toy
That was packed in the hamper Truth sent.
This is the Nurse who worked amain
To help the Doctor, who tried in vain,
With treatment repeated again and again
To take away the distressing pain
That worried the Boy
Till he played with the Toy
That was packed in the hamper Truth sent.
And this is the Fund Truth’s friends maintain,
To try to ease dire poverty’s strain,
And to aid the Nurse who works amain
To help the doctor who tries in vain
With treatment repeated again and again,
To take away the distressing pain
That worried the Boy
Till he played with the toy
That was packed in the hamper Truth sent.
Truth. December 2. 1886.
The Boat that Jack Built.
This is the boat that Jack built.
This is the girl that sat in the boat that Jack built.
This is the youth that loved the girl that sat in the boat that Jack built.
This is the man that hated the youth that loved the girl that sat in the boat that Jack built.
* * * * *
This rhyme, with very humorous illustrations, appeared in The Lock to Lock Times, September 15, 1888. The Lock to Lock Times is a clever little paper devoted to angling and aquatics, it often contains amusing parodies.
Several different versions exist of the following imitation, this one has been selected as the best and most complete. It originally appeared in one of the University Magazines about twenty years ago, but the exact reference is wanting.
The Domicile Erected by John.
By A. Pope.
Behold the mansion reared by Dædal Jack!
See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack,
In the proud cirque of Ivan’s Bivouac!
Mark how the rat’s felonious fangs invade
The golden stores in John’s pavilion laid!
Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides,
Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides;
Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce rodent,
Whose tooth insidious Johann’s sackcloth rent!
Lo! Now the deep-mouthed canine foe’s assault!
That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt,
Stored in the hallowed precincts of that hall,
That rose complete at Jack’s creative call.
Here stalks the impetuous cow with the crumpled horn,
Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn
Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast that slew
The rat predaceous, whose keen fangs ran through
The textile fibres that involved the grain
That lay in Hans’ inviolate domain.
Here walks forlorn the damsel crowned with rue,
Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs who drew
Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn
Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn,
The baying hound whose braggart bark and stir
Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur
Of puss, that, with verminicidal claw,
Struck the weird rat, in whose insatiate maw
Lay reeking malt, that erst in Juan’s courts we saw.
Robed in senescent garb, that seems, in sooth,
To long a prey to Chonos’ iron tooth,
Behold the man whose amorous lips incline
Full with young Eros’ osculative sign,
To the lorn maiden whose lactalbic hands
Drew albulactic wealth from lacteal glands
Of that immortal bovine, by whose horn
Distort, to realms ethereal was borne
The beast catulean, vexer of that sly
Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die
The old mordaceous rat that dared devour
Antecedaneous ale in John’s domestic bower.
Lo! Here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct
Of saponaceous locks, the priest who linked
In Hymen’s golden bands the man unthrift
Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift,
E’en as he kissed the virgin all forlorn
Who milked the cow with implicated horn,
Who in fierce wrath the canine torturer skied,
That dared to vex the insidious muricide,
Who let auroral effluence through the pelt
Of that sly rat that robbed the palace that Jack built.
The loud cantankerous Shanghai[12] comes at last,
Whose shouts aroused the shorn ecclesiast,
Who sealed the vows of Hymen’s sacrament
To him who, robed in garments indigent,
Exosculates the damsel lachrymose,
The emulgator of the horned brute morose.
That on gyrated horn, to heaven’s high vault
Hurled up, with many a tortuous somersault,
The low bone-cruncher, whose hot wrath pursued
The scratching sneak, that waged eternal feud
With long-tailed burglar, who his lips would smack
On farinaceous wealth, that filled the halls of Jack.
Vast limbed and broad the farmer comes at length,
Whose cereal care supplied the vital strength
Of chanticleer, whose matutinal cry
Roused the quiescent form and ope’d the eye
Of razor-loving cleric, who in bands
Connubial linked the intermixed hands
Of him, whose rent apparel gaped apart,
And the lorn maiden with lugubrious heart,
Her who extraught the exuberant lactic flow
Of nutriment from that cornigerent cow,
Eumenidal executor of fate,
That to sidereal altitudes elate
Cerberus, who erst with fang letiferous
Left lacerate Grimalkin latebrose—
That killed the cat
That ate the malt,
That lay in the house that Jack built.
The Pall Mall Gazette for April 22, 1887, contained a Political Parody, entitled “Jubilee Coercion Bill, No. 87.” It was profusely illustrated by F. C. G., and without these illustrations the letterpress would read flat and dull, especially as the fun of calling Goschen, Chamberlain and Caine, “Rats,” however true it may have been in 1887, is pretty well exhausted by this time.
The parody concludes with a portrait of John Bull waving a Home Rule flag, under him are the following lines:—
This is the Farmer who’ll blow his horn—(John Bull.)
When he hears the Cock that’ll crow one morn,—(Justice to Ireland.)
And rouse John Morley shaven and shorn,
That stands by the Peasant tattered and torn,
That loves poor Erin all forlorn,
That cheers the Bull with a lofty scorn,—(Sir W. V. Harcourt.)
That tosses the Pup,—(Lord R. Churchill.)
That snaps at the Cat,—(W. E. Gladstone.)
That’ll kill the Rats,—(Goschen and Chamberlain.)
That swallow the Stuff,
That lay in the Bill
The Tories built.
During the trial in America of the action for Crim. Con. brought by Mr. Tilton against the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, a well known journalist, Mr. W. A. Croffat, published a parody in the New York Daily Graphic called “The House that Bowen Built,” but it would be of no interest to English readers.
School Board Version of the House that Jack Built.
This is the domiciliary edifice erected by John.
This is the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.
This is the obnoxious vermin that masticated the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.
This is the domesticated creature of the feline tribe that completely annihilated the obnoxious vermin that masticated the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.
This is the sagacious scion of the canine genus who disturbed the equanimity of the domesticated creature of the feline tribe which completely annihilated the obnoxious vermin that masticated the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.
This is the graminivorous female of the bovine race who with her curvilinear and corrugated protuberances considerably elevated into atmospheric space the sagacious scion of the canine genus who disturbed the equanimity of the domesticated creature of the feline tribe that completely annihilated the obnoxious vermin that masticated the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.
* * * * *
This is the agriculturist who placed in the alluvial deposit that grain which germinated, flourished, multiplied, and subsequently became the sustenance of the bold chanticleer who by his shrill vociferations, at early dawn, awoke from his slumbers that ecclesiastical gentleman whose cranium was devoid of its hirsute covering who united in the bonds of h-o-l-y matrimony that humble individual whose garments presented a disintegrated and unseemly appearance who sipped the sweet honey from the lips of the young damsel of dejected mien whose occupation consisted in extracting the nutritious lacteal beverage from the graminivorous female of the bovine race who with her curvilinear and corrugated protuberances considerably elevated into atmospheric space the sagacious scion of the canine genus who disturbed the equanimity of the domesticated creature of the feline tribe that completely annihilated the obnoxious vermin that masticated the fermented grain which was deposited in the domiciliary edifice erected by John.
This imitation forms one of a parcel of 14 “Modern Sermons,” as they are styled, published by F. Passmore, 124, Cheapside, E.C., the whole of which may be had, post free, for 13 pence. The following is the introduction to another Sermon founded on the same plot:—
Modern Sermons.
“This is the house that Jack built.”
That is the first portion of my text, dear friends, so you see that for a start we have something definite: we are not simply told that this is the house; but that it is “the house that Jack built.” Now, if Jack was anything, he was a far-seeing man; for do we not read that
“This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.”
Anticipating a rise in the price of barley, and wishing to profit by that rise, Jack bought up all the malt that he could get. But, like many other men, he had an enemy. This was a rat, and of him it is said that
“This is the rat that ate the malt.”
Now I do not wish to impute any greedy or selfish motives to this rat. Probably he was well aware that it was through malt that many men make beasts of themselves. “Beasts,” said the rat to himself, “are already too numerous. If their number is increased, the struggle for existence will become fiercer: so it amounts to this, if I do not, by eating this malt, save men from becoming beasts, we shall have to eat our ‘brothers and our sisters, our cousins and our aunts.’ I will either prevent such a catastrophe, or perish in the attempt.” He perished in the attempt, for we are introduced to his destroyer in the following words:
“This is the cat that killed the rat.”
As I dealt generously with the rat, even so will I deal with the cat. There is every reason for supposing that he was a friend of publicans and sinners. Hear him speak for himself: “If this rat eats all the malt, the publicans must either raise the price of beer, or they must supply their customers with an inferior article. This shall not be.” Having spoken these words, he pounced on the robber, and, intoxicated with success, imprudently shook the fruits of his victory in the face of one of whom it is written:
“This is the dog that worried the cat.”
* * * * *
——:o:——
SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE.
Sing a song of Sixpence,
A pocket full of rye;
Four-and-twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Was not that a dainty dish
To set before the King!
The King was in the parlour
Counting out his money;
The Queen was in the kitchen
Eating bread and honey;
The Maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes,
Down came a blackbird
And perched upon her nose.[13]
Carmen Denarium.
Incipe cui titulo ‘Denarius,’ incipe cantum!
Huic tumido loculo massa secalis inest;
Sex quater in patina merularum corpora, crustum
Queis super impositum pista farina fuit,
Procubuere simul; sed quando adaperta farina est,
Concordes merulis insonuere modi:
Mirum opus harmoniæ! nonne inter fercula posset
Haec vel regificae laux placuisse gulæ?
Rex erat in camera, numerans sibi pondera nimmi,
Pondera plebeio non numerando viro;
Mel maudit panemque morans Regina culina;
Dulcia plebeia non comedenda nuru.
Ad solem vestes siccans Ancilla per hortum
Ibat; et expansas aere funis habet;
Quum merula, affini descendens arbore, nasum
Ancillæ insilluit seque ibi constituit.
From Arundines Cami. Cambridge, 1841.
When Bentley’s Miscellany was started in 1837 it was supported by the most brilliant writers of the day, George Cruikshank designed a cover for it, and Dr. Maginn wrote the following poem which pretty accurately describes Cruikshank’s design:—
The Song of the Cover.
“Sing a song of half-a-crown—
Lay it out this minute;
Buy the book, for half the town
Want to know what’s in it.
Had you all the cares of Job,
You’d then forget your troubles,”
Cried Cupid, seated on the Globe
Busy blowing bubbles.
Rosy summer, pretty spring,
See them scattering flowers—
“Catch who can!” the song they sing;
Heart’s-ease fall in showers.
Autumn, tipsy with the grape,
Plays a pipe and tabor;
Winter imitates the ape,
Mocking at his neighbour.
Bentley, Boz, and Cruikshank, stand,
Like expectant reelers—
“Music!” “Play up!” pipe in hand,
Beside the fluted pillars!
Boz and Cruikshank want to dance,
None for frolic riper,
But Bentley makes the first advance,
Because he “pays the piper.”
“Then sing a song of half-a-crown,
And make a merry race on’t.
To buy the book, all London town;
There’s wit upon the face on’t.
Had you all the cares of Job,
You’d then forget your troubles,”
Cried Cupid, seated on the globe,
Busy blowing bubbles.
Dr. Maginn.
Cantus Sex Denariorum.
Sex denariorum
Cane cantilenam,
Viginti quatuor merulis
Artocream plenam.
Artocreâ apertâ,
Aves canebant grege;
Nonne erat bonum hoc
Locare coram rege?
Rex erat in conclavi
Nummos putans bellè,
Regina in coenaculo
Edens panem melle.
In horto vestes regias
Ancilla suspendebat;
Quum pica fortè veniens
Nasonem rapiebat.
The Hornet. 1872.
Chansonnette de six sous,
La poche pleine de blé,
Vingt-quatre merles, tous
Cuits dans un pâté.
Quand on y mit le couteau,
Les merles chantérent, ma foi!
N’était-ce pas un spectacle beau
Mettre devant le roi?
Edward A. Morton.
Mirth.
Children’s Corner.
Sing a song of Christmas,
A pocket full of pie,
Four-and-twenty puddings
Oh how ni’—how ni’!—
When the feast is over,
Then the doctor comes,
Twirling golden eye-glass,
Twiddling both his thumbs.
Little Jack Horner,
Glum in a corner
After his Christmas Pie,
He wants more to stuff,
But Ma says “Enough!
Little pig, or you’ll certainly die!”
Mary had a little doll
With curls as white as snow,
And whersoever Mary went
That little doll must go.
But brother Billy, back from school,
To Mary he cried “Bo!”
Then smashed that little doll to bits
And in the fire did throw!
Nursery Song in Pidgin English.
Singee songee sick a pence,
Pockee muchee lye; (rye)
Dozen two time blackee bird
Cookee in e pie.
When him cutee topside
Birdee bobbery sing;
Himee tinkee nicey dish
Setee foree King!
Kingee in a talkee loom (room)
Countee muchee money;
Queeny in e kitchee,
Chew-chee breadee honey.
Servant galo shakee,
Hangee washee clothes;
Chop-chop comee blackie bird,
Nipee off her nose!
Anonymous.
Pidgin English is the dialect in use between the Chinese and the English. The Chinese pronounce our letter r at the commencement of a word as l.
The Tanner’s Chant.
Carol forth a canticle of demi-solidus
With grain in a commensurate degree,
Two-dozen darkly-feathered victims of a blunderbuss,
All coarctate ’neath pastry made with ghee,
By patient terebration, the aperture of the pie
Was effected with a lever-handled spoon;
When, judge the consternation of the monarch sitting by,
All the birds set up a sympanising tune.
They were only slightly wounded—chiefly suffering from surprise
(It was fortunate the oven had been slow)
And the warmth, though it alarmed them, which it’s useless to disguise,
Made them quickly convalescent from the blow.
Now, shortly after this the mighty monarch of the land
Was ensconced with heaps of bullion untold,
Engaged in what he evidently didn’t understand—
Rhabdologic computation of his gold.
Her Majesty, his spouse, was in her boudoir far away,
Employed in manducation of her lunch;
On a dessicated loaf she gave her appetite full play,
Which, with honey, was as much as she could munch.
The feminine domestic was just then in the parterre,
Suspending some habiliments to dry,
When a darkly-feathered victim saw her standing on a chair,
And amputated her olfactory.
Sing a song of Season,
Pockets full of naught,
Four-and-twenty Prince-lings
Don’t make up a Court.
When the Season’s opened,
They’ll represent the Crown;—
Isn’t that a shabby dish
To set before the town?
The Queen is absent—somewhere,
Saving up her money,
The Prince is in a Nile boat—
The Prince he is so funny.
So there’s left but Christian
To play the King at shows,
And if he does, a blackbird,
We trust, will have his nose!
The Tomahawk. March, 1869.
American Version.
Sing a song of dollars,
A pocket full of brass,
Four-and-twenty blackbirds
Baked in apple sass.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began a hovering,
Wasn’t that a dainty dish
To set before a Sovereign?
At a concert given in the Albert Hall on February 26, 1876, when the Queen was present, the hall was scarcely half filled, and Sir Henry Cole’s arrangements were loudly condemned.
Sing a song of native art!
A programme weak and dry;
4 P.M. to Albert Hall
Her Majesty draws nigh.
When the doors were opened,
The dead heads all came in,
And took up their positions
Where they could see the Queen.
The Queen was in the Royal box,
And thought it quite too funny,
That fools to come and look at her
Parted with their money.
Those who could not see her box
Took a quiet doze,
And half the people left the Hall
Long before the close.
The people and Her Majesty
Said ’twas a frightful hash;
If this was all Sir Cole’s big show,
It wasn’t worth the cash.
The Figaro. March 4, 1876.
Sing a song of gladness—
“Dissolution” nigh—
All the Tory party
Eating humble pie.
When the pie was opened
What a mess beneath!—
“Peace with honour” stewed with
Turnerelli’s wreath.
Dizzy, down at Hughenden,
Scowling at his fate—
“Imperium et Libertas”
Just a little late;
Staffy at the ’Chequer
Looking very blue—
Budget day’s approaching—
Don’t know what to do!
Hatfield’s lord, and Stanley,
Cranbrook, too, and Cross,
“Bag and Baggage,” clear out—
What a dreadful loss!
Ducal Richmond, also,
Country’s cup’s too full.
With Ireland and Afghan,
Zulu and Cabul.
Ere another Christmas
Brings its frost and snows,
In comes “People’s William!”
Heals the nation’s woes!
L. Probert.
The Weekly Dispatch. December 21, 1879.
Sing a Song of Sixpence—
Cabmen warm and dry—
Four-and-twenty Cabmen, drinking on the sly;
When they left the “Shelter”
For fares they couldn’t shirk,
The rain had come a pelter
On beasts half dead with work:
Sing a Song of Sixpence—
Philanthropy’s awry,
Which leaves these wretched cattle
To shiver till they die.
Punch. November 26, 1881.
The Song of Science.
Trilobite, Graptobite
Nautilus pie,
Seas were calcareous,
Oceans were dry,
Eocene, miocene,
Pilocene, tuff,
Lias and trias,
And that is enough.
O, sing a song of phosphates,
Fibrine in a line,
Four-and-twenty follicles
In the van of time.
When the phosphorescence
Evoluted brain,
Superstition ended,
Men began to reign.
Rev. Joseph Cook
Free Press Flashes. 1881.
The English Illustrated Magazine.
Sing a song of sixpence!
A pocket full of gain!
Edited by Comyns Carr!
Wrapper drawn by Crane!
When the pie was opened
Swinburne ’gan to sing.
Allen on a Dormouse,
What a pretty thing:
Maitland’s down in Westminster
Dreaming ’mid the cloisters,
Huxley’s in his oyster bed,
Counting out his oysters!
Miss Yonge among the “Armourers”
No ’prentice talent shows;
Let’s hope the little Black-bird
Won’t peck off her nose!
The St. James’s Gazette. October 4, 1883.
The first part of The English Illustrated Magazine was published by Messrs. Macmillan & Co. in October, 1883. It contained “Les Casquettes,” a poem by Swinburne, “The Dormouse at Home,” by Grant Allen, an article on the Law Courts, by F. W. Maitland, and one on Oysters, by Professor Huxley.
The Healtheries.
Fifty thousand nimble shillings,
Plus a hundred and thirteen,
That’s the latest of the takings,
Checked by Maskelyne’s Machine.
So Sing a Song of Turnstiles,
As they twist away;
Fifty thousand shillings
Taken in a day!
When the Show was opened,
The crowds at once were thick;
Wasn’t it a pretty sound
To hear the turnstiles click?
The people in the gardens still
Are sampling cream and honey;
But we to the Pavilion
Bear the bags of money!
Truth. December, 1884.
Sing a song of Jingo
(Chorus, fife and drum),
Twenty thousand Arabs
Sent to kingdom come.
When the trouble’s over,
And glory’s cup is full,
There’ll be a pretty butcher’s bill
To lay before John Bull.
Bondholders in the City
Are passing sleepless nights,
The Arabs in the Soudan
Are fighting for their rights.
The whole affair’s a muddle
That daily thicker grows,
Why we e’er went into it
Is what nobody knows.
H. B.
Sing a song of dynamite—
What a mighty scare!
A London railway-station
In pieces in the air.
Bags and pistols, clockwork,
Nasty cakes of brown—
Weren’t they dainty dishes
To find about our town?
Government and railway folks
Didn’t think it funny;
They to find the plotters
Offered lots of money.
Perhaps across the sea they’ve gone,
In other suits of clothes;
Perhaps they’re living quietly
Right under London’s nose.
Jane Jones.
The Weekly Dispatch. April 13, 1884.
Sing a song of eightpence,
Income tax is high;
Four and twenty blunders
In a Gladstone pie;
When the pie is opened
Won’t there be a shout,
When two dozen blunders
All come flying out.
Gladstone’s in the Treasury,
Counting coin in lumps;
The Queen is in her castle—
Her people in the dumps.
Judy. May 13, 1885.
The Jubilee Coinage.
Sing a song of sixpence, they struck it all awry,
“Four” and “twenty” pieces, too, were faked in the die;
When the dies were opened the folks began to sing,
“Why, there ain’t a money value set on this ’ere thing.”
The bankers in their parlours were laughing at the money;
The Queen looked at her portrait and thought it very funny;
The G.O.M. at Hawarden said, sniffling through his nose,
“When I was Master of the Mint we made no coins like those.”
Darjew.
The Weekly Dispatch. October 2, 1887.
Sing a song of sixpence, a packetful of news,
Just a dozen wordlets all that you must use.
When the packet’s open’d, the news begins to ring,
A birth, a death, a dainty dish of gossip doth it bring.
The husband’s in his counting-house losing all his money,
The wife is in the pantry eating bread and honey;
The daughter’s in the garden, undreaming of the news,
When “rat-tat” comes a telegram—they’re shaking in their shoes.
Repealer.
Sing a song of saving,
A pocketful of tin,
Telegrams for sixpence
A surplus will bring in.
When the cover’s opened,
We feel inclined to sing:
“It’s all abbreviations,
We can’t make out a thing.”
Hecla.
Sing a song of Gladstone, and make the Tories sigh,
Who, in the coming contest, will have another try,
When the House assembles shan’t we do a grin,
If Tories take a back seat, and Gladdy should get in.
Salisbury in the Upper House, pulling faces funny,
Cocky little Randy looking anything but sunny;
Will, as Premier, back again, sitting on his foes,
Staffy up aloft, and indulging in a doze.
William Tyrrell.
Truth. October 15, 1885.
Sing a song of scaffolds! a pocket full of twine!
Sixty applications to “enlist men in the line!”
When old M. departed, the names came pouring in,—
Isn’t that a pretty way to earn a lot of tin?—
Marwood’s in the churchyard, as dead as any mummy;
The Queen she wants a hangman, which sounds a little rummy!
The tender-hearted maiden says “hanging’s out of date!”
When down comes a black cap upon the Judge’s pate!
F. B. Doveton. 1886.
Sing a song of gunnery, a science full of slips,
Three-and-forty tonners packed into our ships;
When the guns were fired, the tubes began to burst—
Wasn’t this a clever thing not to know at first?
Truth. September 30, 1886.
Sing a song of sixpence,
Many of them shy.
Four-and-twenty trippers
To Newcastle hie.
The Exhibition opened,
The trippers crowded in;
Wasn’t there a scramble
To hear the band begin.
They went into the coal mine,
And thought it very funny;
Also tried the switchback,
Well worth the money.
They strolled about the garden,
In their Sunday clothes;
Had a glass or two of Burton,
And off home they goes.
Perseverantia.
Newcastle Chronicle. November, 1887.
Goschen to the Rescue.
Sing a song of French pence,
Tempers all awry;
None will take the foreign “browns”—
All are asking “Why?”
Small shopkeeper, tramway-man,
Pray keep up your pecker,
You’ll have Goschen’s sympathy,
Help from the Exchequer.
To relieve you from your mess,
Goschen says he’s willing;
They shall go, like penny buns,
Thirteen for a shilling.
That shall wipe the ’busman’s eye,
Pacify the nation,
And, what’s better, purify
John Bull’s “circulation.”
Punch. April 23, 1887.
Nursery Rhyme for Young Italy.
The King in the Quirinal,
Feeling very funny;
The Kaiser in a parlour,
Tired after journey.
The Pope was in the Vatican,
Looking at his shoe;
Up comes the Emperor,
And says, “How d’ye do?”
October, 1888.
Sing a song of sixpence, in pockets made to lie,
One of forty art-birds, asked to shape the die;
When the dye was token’d, all who saw the mien
Sang—“This is not a dainty ‘tiz’[14] to set before the Queen.”
The Queen was in her country house, counting up her money;
Prince B.[15] was in the pantry, spreading his bread with honey;
The Chancellor was in the garden, hanging out old clothes,
When soon there came back word this “tizzy” to depose.
Truth. June 14, 1888.
Sing a song of Chamberlain, three acres and a cow,
Sent across the herring-pond cannot end the row;
Breaking up his party in a fit of spleen,
Wasn’t that the meanest dodge that any one has seen!
Harty’s turned a Tory, fêted in the City,
Jess and Bright are martyrs—isn’t it a pity?
Goschen’s in the Cabinet, happy with the cash,
Up will come the Radicals, and settle all his hash.
Radix.
Sing a song of armaments, an empire all awry,
Four-and-twenty critics raise a doleful cry;
A capital defenceless, ships without guns or shot.
When the threatened war breaks out, won’t Johnny get it hot!
Johnny is busy in his shop, making and saving money,
His women kind are humming round, like bees in search of honey;
His crafty foes are scheming to bring matters to a close,
By smashing up his ironclads, and pulling Johnny’s nose.
W. H. T.
Truth. June 28, 1888.
The Parnell Commission.
Sing a song of tricksters,
Commission all my eye!
Walter’s dirty finger
Traced in the pie;
When the bill was promised
It had an honest ring,
But when it was printed
’Twas quite another thing.
The First Lord in his parlour,
As the bees suck honey,
Was listening to Walter
Giving testimony;
The pay for smashing Parnell
’S a peerage, I suppose;
A few more bogus letters
And “up the donkey goes.”
H. M. Blane.
The Allegations Bill.
Sing a song of libels,
A session full of crimes,
All the Tory Cabinet
Stewing with the Times;
When the case is ended
Another tune they’ll sing—
Won’t it be a pretty mess
If they together cling?
Goschen paying for the job
With the people’s money;
Smith and Walter swearing that
The forgeries were “funny”;
Chamberlain and Hartington
Looking down their nose,
And Parnell triumphant,
Grinning at his foes.
Jesse H. Wheeler.
The Weekly Dispatch. August 12, 1888.
The Conspirators’ Chorus.
Sing a song of Dynamite, pack it up in bags,
Rattle it in railway trains, drop it on the flags;
Let it go in luggage vans ’mid all harmless loads;
Never mind the consequence if the stuff explodes.
Here’s to Nitro-glycerine! store it in a cask.
Making it, says Chemistry, is an easy task;
Though it’s reckoned dangerous, let it flood the floors,
Startling the detective coves prying at the doors.
Fulminating Mercury goes off with a noise,
Fit for little Fenians like a baby’s toys;
Chlorate of Potassium’s not exactly placid,
When it’s mixed with sugar, Sir, and sulphuric acid.
This a merry business is, but your cruel laws
Say we shan’t use Dynamite to advance the Cause;
Yet we’ll mix our fulminates underneath your eyes,
While the gay Conspirator blows you to the skies.
——:o:——
THE BELLS OF LONDON TOWN
Gay go up and gay go down,
To ring the bells of London town.
Bull’s eyes and targets,
Say the bells of St. Marg’ret’s.
Brickbats and tiles,
Say the bells of St. Giles!
Halfpence and farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin’s.
Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement’s.
Pancakes and fritters,
Say the bells of St. Peter’s.
Two sticks and an apple,
Say the bells at Whitechapel.
Old Father Baldpate,
Say the slow bells at Aldgate.
You owe me ten shillings.
Say the bells at St. Helen’s.
Pokers and tongs,
Say the bells at St. John’s.
Kettles and pans
Say the bells at St. Ann’s.
When will you pay me?
Say the bells at Old Bailey.
When I grow rich,
Say the bells at Shoreditch.
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.
I’m sure I don’t know,
Says the great bell at Bow.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head.
What the New City Peal Says.
You must pay up your “calls”—
Say the bells of St. Paul’s!
Stock rises and falls—
Say the bells of St. Paul’s!
City Companies’ hauls—
Say the bells of St. Paul’s!
Snug prebends and stalls—
Say the bells of St. Paul’s!
Blessings on these old walls!
Say the bells of St. Paul’s!
Oranges and Lemons in the City.
“Reformers are unpleasant,”
Say the bells of St. Clement.
“Yes, that is quite sartin,”
Say the bells of St. Martin.
“Do they want a sermon daily?”
Say the bells of Old Bailey.
“I’m sure I don’t know,”
Says the great bell of Bow.
“The Lords are in a fury,”
Say the bells of Old Jewry.
“Will they leave us in the lurch?”
Say the bells of Abchurch.
“I’ve a beadle and a clerk,”
Say the bells of St. Mark.
“Those two a church fill,”
Say the bells of Cornhill.
Punch. July 23, 1881.
“Poor Ireland’s enslavèd!” say the bells of St. David;
“God help the poor creaturs!” say the bells of St. Peter’s;
“Turned out of their dwellin’s,” say the bells of St. Helen’s;
“And speed Home Rule on!” say the bells of St. John;
“O, Tories, you rile us!” say the bells of St. Silas;
“Confound your vagaries,” say the bells of St. Mary’s;
“You’re always ridiculous,” say the bells of St. Nicholas;
“And traitors besides!” say the bells of St. Bride’s;
“You’ve earned our abhorrence,” say the bells of St. Lawrence;
“You’re fit for the gallows,” say the bells of All Hallows;
“So get away from us,” say the bells of St. Thomas;
“We want better men!” roars out old Big Ben;
“You’ve had all your flukes,” say the bells of St. Luke’s;
“Suspensions and brawls,” say the bells of St. Paul’s;
“The session concludes,” say the bells of St. Jude’s;
“Out you must go!” says the great bell at Bow.
Robert Puttick.
The Weekly Dispatch. October 2, 1887.
The Chimes. 1886.
(For Bad Times.)
“The Turks haven’t a shilling!”
Said the gate bell of Billing.
“And then Russia wants all!”
Said a bell near Millwall.
“And poor France has no power!”
Said the bell of the Tower.
“And that Egypt’s a sweep!”
Cried the bell of Eastcheap.
“And there’s Spain—a great sell!”
Said St. Lawrence’s bell.
“Oh, we’ve had a nice ride!”
Said the bell of St. Bride.
“And are ground in a mill!”
Moaned a bell near Cornhill.
“We must wait for high tide!”
Mourned the bell of Cheapside.
“It’s a regular hitch!”
Clanged the bell of Shoreditch.
“Shall we really lose all?”
Asked the bell of St. Paul.
“We should much like to know!”
Tolled the big bell of Bow.
——:o:——
Who should Educate the Prince of Wales?
“This is a serious question; and though we have looked through the advertisements of Morning Governesses every day for the last week, we are compelled to admit we have seen nothing that seems likely to suit—at least, at present. It is no doubt a very serious consideration, how the young ideas of the Prince of Wales should be taught to shoot so as to hit the mark; and it is, unfortunately, not so easy to train up a royal child, though the railroad pace at which education travels renders it necessary that he should be put into a first-class train as soon as possible. Awfully impressed with the deep importance of the question, we have made an humble endeavour to answer it, and if the hints are of any service to the nation, our object will be fulfilled, and our ambition will be gratified.”
Who’ll teach the Prince?
I, answered Punch,
With my cap and hunch;
And I’ll teach the Prince.
Who’ll write his books?
I, answered Brougham,
With my goose-quill plume;
And I’ll write his books.
Who’ll make him dance?
I, answered Peel,
For I can turn and wheel;
I’ll make him dance.
Who’ll teach him logic?
Says Hume, I’ve the right,
I can vote black is white;
So I’ll teach him logic.
Who’ll teach him dancing?
I, lisp’d Baron Nathan,
’Mongtht tea-cupth, jughth, and bathin:
I’ll teach him dancing.
Who’ll teach him writing?
I, said Lord William,
Because a copyist with a quill, I am;
And I’ll teach him writing.
Who’ll teach him politics?
Said Graham, that will I,
That he every side may try;
So I’ll teach him politics.
Who’ll pay the piper?
I, said John Bull,
On me will come the pull:
I must pay the piper.
Punch. September, 1843.
This old parody of “Who killed Cock Robin?” was illustrated with a number of funny little portraits.
Who killed these Arabs?
“I did,” said Graham;
I’d orders to slay em—
I killed these Arabs.
Who saw them die?
Allah on high,
With all-seeing eye—
He saw them die.
Who’ll be their mourners?
“We,” said the Tribes,
“Although we’ve had bribes—
We’ll be their mourners,”
Who’ll pay the cost?
“I,” said John Bull,
“Because I’m a fool—
I’ll pay the cost.”
And who’ll wind it up?
“The Rads!” cried the Nation;
“If but firm in their station,
They’ll wind it up!”
George Mallinson.
The Weekly Dispatch. April 13, 1884.
Who Killed Home Rule.
Who killed Home Rule?
I, said Joe Chamberlain;
Simply by speaking plain,
I killed Home Rule.
Who saw it die?
I, answered Goschen—
I gave it a potion,
Then saw it die.
Who made its shroud?
I, said Lord Harty;
Regardless of party,
I made its shroud.
Who dug its grave?
I, Lord Randy cried,
Making it deep and wide,
I dug its grave.
Who was chief mourner?
I, said Parnell;
When my hopes fell,
I was chief mourner.
Who was the parson?
I, said Trevelyan;
My text was “rebellion,”
I was the parson.
Who was the clerk?
I, said John Morley,
And I wept sorely,
I was the clerk.
Who tolled the bell?
I, said John Bull;
With a good hearty pull,
I tolled the bell.
The People. July 3, 1886.
The Grand Old Cock Robin.
Who killed Gladstone?
I, said Chamberlain,
And I feel like Cain(e)
I killed Gladstone.
Who saw him die?
I, said Goschen,
Without any emotion
I saw him die.
Who caught his blood?
I, said Caine,
And it’s left a big stain;
I caught his blood.
Who’ll make his shroud?
I, said Argyll,
In superior style;
I’ll make his shroud.
Who’ll carry him to the grave?
I, said County Guy,
With a tear in his eye;
I’ll carry him to the grave.
Who’ll dig his grave?
I, said Lord Randy,
For I’ve got the tools handy;
I’ll dig his grave.
Who’ll carry the link?
I, said John Bright,
With my sweetness and light;
I’ll carry the link.
Who’ll be chief mourner?
I, said John Morley,
For I miss him sorely;
I’ll be chief mourner.
Who’ll sing a psalm?
I, said Fowler,
A regular howler:
I’ll sing a psalm.
Who’ll be the parson?
I, said Hicks-Beach,
For I can preach;
I’ll be the parson.
Who’ll be the clerk?
I, said John Walter,
For the Times may alter;
I’ll be the clerk.
Who’ll toll the bell?
I, said Parnell:
’Twas for Ireland he fell;
I’ll toll the bell.
The Pall Mall Gazette. June 17, 1886.
Who won Miss Jenny?
“I,” said young Bogle,
“With my bow and Ogle.
I won Miss Jenny!”
Who heard him pop?
“I,” said Miss Squeers,
“With my two itching ears,
I heard him pop!”
Who made him do it?
“I,” said Miss Jenny,
“The bashful young ninny.
I made him do it!”
Who’ll tie the knot?
“I,” said Dean B——.
“For the sake of the fee,—
I’ll tie the knot!”
Who’ll be best man?
“I,” said Jack Bate,
“For I’ll kiss saucy Kate.
I’ll be best man!”
Who’ll tell his Dad?
“I,” said Tom Hare,
“And oh! won’t he swear!
I’ll tell his Dad!”
From Sketches in Prose and Verse, by F. B. Doveton, London, Sampson Low & Co., 1886.
Who killed Will Gladstone?
“I,” said Joe C—;
“The blow came from me;
I killed Will Gladstone.”
Who saw him die?
“I,” said Lord Harty,
“With my little party;
We saw him die.”
Who’ll dig his grave?
“I,” said Lord Randy;
“I’ve got the place handy;
I’ll dig his grave.”
East Anglia.
Truth. September 30, 1886.
Who’ll kill Coercion?
“I,” cries Democracy;
“Despite the Aristocracy,
“I’ll kill Coercion.”
Who’ll see him die?
“I,” sighs each Tory;
“Though in him I glory,
“I’ll see him die.”
Who’ll catch his blood?
“I,” says Castle rule;
“He is my favourite tool,
“I’ll catch his blood.”
Who’ll make his shroud?
“I,” cries Trevelyan;
“Would wager a million,
“I’ll make his shroud.”
Who’ll dig his grave?
“I,” cries old Gladstone;
“In Mitcheltown’s sandstone,
“I’ll dig his grave.”
Who’ll carry him to the grave?
“I,” says Salisbury;
(“But I am in no hurry),
“I’ll carry him to the grave.”
Who’ll bear the pall?
Says Chamberlain and Goschen,
“We are both of one notion,
“We’ll bear the pall.”
Who’ll carry the link?
“I,” says John Bright,
“To give you all light,
“I’ll carry the link.”
Who’ll be chief mourner?
“I,” says Rack-renter;
“My hopes in him centre,
“I’ll be chief mourner.”
“Who’ll be the parson?
“I,” says gagging Smith;
“Have the books to do it with,
“I’ll be the parson.”
Who’ll be the clerk?
“I,” says O’Brien;
“His grace to be eyein’,
“I’ll be the clerk.”
Who’ll toll the bell?
“I,” shouts bold Parnell;
“His end aloud to tell,
“I’ll toll the bell.”
Democrat.
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle.
Who Stole O’Brien’s Breeches?
Who stole O’Brien’s breeches?
I, said Balfour, with the aid of a warder,
I stole his breeches.
Who stole his shirt?
I, said Londonderry, and it’s made London merry,
I stole his shirt.
Who stole his coat?
I, said Plunkett: I went and slunk it,
I stole his coat.
Who stole his socks?
I, said King-Harman, for I wanted to darn ’em,
I stole his socks.
Who stole his boots?
I, said Saxe-Weimar, and the joke is a screamer,
I stole his boots.
Who’ll wear the gaol clothes?
Not I, said O’Brien, spite of all their tryin’!
I’ll not wear the gaol clothes.
Pall Mall Gazette. November, 1887.
——:o:——
Jack and Jill went up the hill,
To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down, and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.
Johannes et Gillia.
Johannes atque Gillia
Scandebant super clivo,
Ut urnam aquæ gelidæ
Haurirent ibi rivo.
Johanni decidenti, heu,
Tunc caput frangebatur;
Et Gillia cadens etiam
Johannem sequebatur.
The Hornet. 1872.
——:o:——
A Song for Five Fingers.
This pig went to market;
This pig stayed at home,
This pig had a bit of meat;
And this pig had none;
This pig said “wee, wee, wee!”
I can’t find my way home.
In Quinque Digitos.
Hic porculus forum pergebat,
Hic, contrà, in domo manebat,
Hic porculus carnem edebat
Hic victu, heu, planè carebat.
Hic porculus mœstè lugebat,
Quod illum nox domo claudebat.
The Hornet. 1872.
——:o:——
Hey! diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
Nursery Rhymes a la Mode.
(Our nurseries will soon be too cultured to admit the old rhymes in their Philistine and unæsthetic garb. They may be redressed somewhat on this model!)
O but she was dark and shrill,
(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)
The cat that (on the First Aprill)
Played the fiddle upon the lea.
O and the moon was wan and bright,
(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)
The Cow she looked nor left nor right,
But took it straight at a jump, pardie!
The hound did laugh to see this thing,
(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)
As it were parlous wantoning,
(Ah, good my gentles, laugh not ye!)
And underneath a dreesome moon
Two lovers fled right piteouslie;
A spooney plate with a plated spoon,
(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)
Postscript.
Then blame me not, altho’ my verse
Sounds like an echo of C. S. C.
Since still they make ballads that worse and worse
Savour of diddle and hey-de-dee.
From Rhymes and Renderings. Cambridge. Macmillan and Bowes. 1887.
“Hey Diddle Diddle! the Cat and the Fiddle.”
Ah! joy with me, my neighbours, joy with me,
And let the air resound with glad acclaims,
For she indeed, our furry feline friend,
Hath shown herself disposed to music’s charms,
And with the viol held in nimble paw,
Scrapeth the tunes of mirthful melody.
Meanwhile, aroused from out her careless mood,
The Cow forgets her grazing on the grass,
Forgets the blades most choice and succulent,
Forgets the pail defrauded of its milk,
Forgets the aim and tenor of her life,
And rapt in rumination at the sound,
Listens, until the sweet mysterious strains
Fire her most inmost soul: then wildly forth
In frantic frenzy speeds her wind-whirled way,
Stirred by the notes of feline minstrelsy.
But, louder comes the soul-inspiring sound,
Till, boiling o’er with ecstacy, she leaps
Far from the earth, and further still, away.
I may not tell the distance of her leap,
’Twas all too far for mortal eye to trace;
Yet afterwards her corse came hurtling down,—
For in the mighty magnitude of space
Through which she sprang with impulse unrestrained,
Her very swiftness had abstracted breath—
And on her hoof a substance green was found
Which soon, ’twas marked, was nothing else than cheese;
That so ’twould seem she had all but o’ertopped
In that one bound the far far distant moon,
A portion of whose substance there appeared
Hoof-stricken, and adhering to its foe,
To warn all others from such lofty leaps.
Then was there mourning for the direful death;
The horse, the hen, the labourer, and the lamb
Flowed down in floods of saline tears sincere:
While eke the cat hath stayed her viol’s notes,
And wipes with trembling paw each streaming eye:
But he, that very fiend in canine form,
Brawls in a bluff brutality of mirth,
Cries that “I’sooth it was a merry sport;”
Aye laughs, as if each lateral wall of ribs
Would burst asunder; for methinks that she
While yet in life, our much-lamented cow,
The while the dog was barking at her heel,
With well-aimed kick erst stretched him on the plain;
Wherefore at her mishap in spiteful spleen
He now with cachinnations fills the air.
Ah! would that I could end my tale aright,
And give to something some good attribute.
But no:—for in this wicked worthless world
Seldom we see a soul untouched by taint:—
Let me then hurry o’er the final scene,
The shameful shift to make emolument
Amid the wild confusion that prevailed.
’Tis said the earthenware receptacle,
Surnamed the Dish, who, highly held in honour,
Maintained the meats, and lived a lordly life,
Struck by a sudden guilty greed of gain,
And noting furthermore that none espied,
Clutched in his grasp the partner of his trade,
The Spoon yclept, and, hurrying hastily,
Bore him away right down into the street,
And reached by stealth the pawnbroker’s at length,
Whence,—for the spoon was one of Mappin’s make,—
He went back richer by a good round sum,
Nor told to anyone his shameless sin.
(Attributed to Mr. T. H. S. Escott, afterwards Editor of the Fortnightly Review.)
From College Rhymes. Oxford, 1873.
At the Inventions.
Hey diddle diddle,
Piano and fiddle,
The fountains sprang up towards the moon,
The people all flocked to see the fine sight,
And sipp’d Indian tea with a spoon.
Chickweed.
Truth. October 15, 1885.
——:o:——
MISTRESS MARY.
Mistress Mary,
Quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells
And cockle shells
And hyacinths all of a row.
Domina Maria.
O mea Maria,
Tota contraria,
Quid tibi crescit in horto?
Testae et crotali
Sunt mihi flosculi,
Cum hyacinthino serto.
Henry Drury.
From Arundines Cami. Cambridge. 1841.
Mary, Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
Do red rose and sweet mignonette
Make quite a summer show?
Twice seven days since we have met,
But it seems years ago—
Mary, Mary, so contrary,
Why do I love you so!
Mary, Mary, in your airy
Summer gown of snow,
Folding fragrant linen fair,
Through your house to go;
Full of self and full of care
Will you heed my woe—
Mary, Mary, so contrary,
Why do I love you so?
Mary, Mary, in the dairy,
Setting pans in row,
Jingling keys and silver bells,
Marching to and fro,
Learned in all your household spells—
(Wise you are we trow),
Tell me Mary, still contrary,
Why do I love you so!
Ah! my Mary comes a fairy,
Whispers soft and low,
All the sweet and sudden truth
Heart to heart must owe;
Be it joy or be it ruth,
Only this I know—
’Tis because you are contrary
That I love you so!
S. Frances Harrison.
From W. E. G.
Joseph, Joseph, quite contrary,
How do your acres grow?
Some with weeds and some with seeds,
But ne’er a one with a cow.
Truth. September 30, 1886.
Harty, Harty, what of your party,
How does your Union grow;
Primrose belles, and Radical swells,
Coercionists all in a row.
Newcastle Chronicle. November, 1887.
“Master Joey,
Quite too showy,
How does your party grow?”
“There’s Collings, and Dick,
And Mister Kenrick,
And myself, the boss of the show.”
P. Q. X.
Truth. June 28, 1888.
——:o:——
MOTHER HUBBARD.
Brethren, the words of my text are:—
“Old Mother Hubbard, she went to the cupboard,
To get her poor dog a bone;
But when she got there the cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none.”
These beautiful words, dear friends, carry with them a solemn lesson. I propose this morning to analyze their meaning, and to attempt to apply it, lofty as it may be, to our every-day life.
“Old Mother Hubbard, she went to the cupboard,
To get her poor dog a bone.”
Mother Hubbard, you see, was old; there being no mention of others, we may presume she was alone; a widow—a friendless, old, solitary widow. Yet, did she despair? Did she sit down and weep, or read a novel, or wring her hands? No! she went to the cupboard. And here observe that she went to the cupboard. She did not hop, or skip, or run, or jump, or use any other peripatetic artifice; she solely and merely went to the cupboard. We have seen that she was old and lonely, and we now further see that she was poor. For, mark, the words are “the cupboard.” Not “one of the cupboards,” or “the right-hand cupboard,” or “the left-hand cupboard,” or “the one above,” or “the one below,” or “the one under the floor,” but just “the cupboard,” the one humble little cupboard the poor widow possessed. And why did she go to the cupboard? Was it to bring forth goblets, or glittering precious stones, or costly apparel, or feasts, or any other attributes of wealth? It was to get her poor dog a bone! Not only was the widow poor, but her dog, the sole prop of her old age, was poor too. We can imagine the scene. The poor dog, crouching in the corner, looking wistfully at the solitary cupboard, and the widow going to that cupboard—in hope, in expectation may be—to open it, although we are not distinctly told that it was not half open, or ajar, to open it for that poor dog.
“But when she got there the cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none.”
When she got there! You see, dear brethren, what perseverance is! She got there! There were no turnings and twistings, no slippings and slidings, no leanings to the right, or falterings to the left. With glorious simplicity we are told “she got there.”
And how was she rewarded?
“The cupboard was bare!” It was bare! There were to be found neither apples, nor oranges, nor cheesecakes, nor penny buns, nor gingerbread, nor crackers, nor nuts, nor lucifer matches. The cupboard was bare! There was but one, only one solitary cupboard in the whole of the cottage, and that one, the sole hope of the widow, and the glorious loadstar of the poor dog, was bare! Had there been a leg of mutton, a loin of lamb, a fillet of veal, even an ice from Gunter’s, the case would have been very different, the incident would have been otherwise. But it was bare, my brethren, bare as a bald head. Many of you will probably say, with all the pride of worldly sophistry—“The widow, no doubt, went out and bought a dog biscuit.” Ah, no! Far removed from these earthly ideas and mundane desires, poor Mother Hubbard, the widow, whom many thoughtless worldlings would despise, in that she only owned one cupboard, perceived—or I might even say saw—at once the relentless logic of the situation, and yielded to it with all the heroism of that nature which had enabled her, without deviation, to reach the barren cupboard. She did not attempt, like the stiff-necked scoffers of this generation, to war against the inevitable; she did not try, like the so-called man of science, to explain what she did not understand. She did nothing. “The poor dog had none.” And then at this point our information ceases. But do we not know sufficient? Are we not cognisant of enough? Who would dare to pierce the veil that shrouds the ulterior fate of Old Mother Hubbard—her poor dog—the cupboard—or the bone that was not there? Must we imagine her still standing at the open cupboard door, depict to ourselves the dog still drooping his disappointed tail upon the floor, the sought-for bone remaining somewhere else? Ah, no, my brethren, we are not so permitted to attempt to read the future. Suffice it for us to glean from this beautiful story its many lessons; suffice it for us to apply them, to study them as far as in us lies, and, bearing in mind the natural frailty of our nature, to avoid being widows; to shun the patronymic of Hubbard; to have, if our means afford it, more than one cupboard in the house; and to keep stores in them all.
And oh! dear friends, keep in recollection what we have learned this day. Let us avoid keeping dogs that are fond of bones. But, brethren, if we do, if fate has ordained that we should do any of these things, let us then go, as Mother Hubbard did, straight, without curvetting and prancing, to our cupboard, empty though it be,—let us, like her, accept the inevitable with calm steadfastness; and should we, like her, ever be left with a hungry dog and an empty cupboard, may future chroniclers be able to write also in the beautiful words of our text—
“And so the poor dog had none.”
Notes and Queries, April 21, 1888, contained the following interesting account of the origin of this singular jeu d’esprit:
This is not a “burlesque” of the story of ‘Mother Hubbard,’ but a good-humoured parody of the popular (?) “regulation” sermon. It appeared originally in 1877, in a novel by Lord Desart, who claimed it in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette in December, 1886, in which he says that “one of his characters delivered it as a mock sermon,” and adds that it has been copied into “most of the provincial English and Scotch, and into many American and Canadian newspapers.” He adds:—
“I myself heard it preached by a negro minstrel at Haverley’s, New York; it has been neatly printed, with an introduction, by a clergyman, and sent round to his brother preachers as an example of how not to do it; it was bought for a penny in a broadsheet form in the City a year or two ago by a friend of mine; it has been heard at countless penny readings and entertainments of the kind; it has appeared among the facetiæ of a guide-book to Plymouth and the South Coast; and in a volume published by the owners of St. Jacob’s Oil, as well as in another jest-book; and the other day I was shown it in a collection of ana, just published by Messrs. Routledge & Co., for a firm in Melbourne; and all this without any acknowledgment of its authorship whatsoever. Perhaps you will allow me, through your columns, to claim my wandering child—‘a poor thing, but mine own.’”
——:o:——
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb, and he took out a plum,
And said, “What a good boy am I!”
These lines form part of “The pleasant History of Jack Horner, containing his witty Tricks and pleasant Pranks,” a copy of which is in the Bodleian Library, the story must have been in existence earlier than 1617, at which date a similar tale was printed in London founded upon it.
Versio Altera.
Horner Jacculo sedit in angulo
Vorans, ceu serias ageret ferias,
Crustum dulce et amabile;
Inquit et unum extrahens prunum—
“Horner, quam fueris nobile pueris
Exemplar imitabile.”
Henry Drury.
From Arundines Cami. Cambridge, 1841.
Johannis Hornerii Jactatio.
Hornerius Johannes
In angulo sedebat,
Et ibi in silentio
Artocream edebat.
Extraxit prunum digito
Et statim se jactabat—
“Ecce quam bonus puer sum!”
Hornerius clamabat.
The Hornet. May 29, 1872.
Studious Jack Horner, of Latin no scorner,
In the second declension did spy
How nouns there were some,
Which, ending in um, do not make their plural in i.
Chessmen.
Truth. September 30, 1886.
The Modern Jack Horner.
Little Jack Horner, on the street corner,
Smoked up his last cigarette;
Saying, “When this is done, I’ll to the saloon
And wet up my whistle, ‘you bet.’”
Little Jack Horner is now the chief mourner
To head a policeman’s procession.
The infantile dude became far too rude
In trying to follow the fashion.
Detroit Free Press. December, 1886.
Little Lord Randy
Turned up quite handy,
Speaking his mind so spry;
He slashed right and left,
Both weavers and weft,
And he said, “What a statesman am I.”
M. B. B.
Truth. June 28, 1888.
——:o:——
Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief;
Taffy came to my house, and stole a shin of beef:
I went to Taffy’s house, Taffy was not at home;
Taffy came to my house and stole a marrow bone.
I went to Taffy’s house, Taffy was not in,
Taffy came to my house and stole a silver pin;
I went to Taffy’s house, Taffy was in bed,
I took up a poker and flung it at his head.
For an explanation of this curious old rhyme, and Shirley Brooks’s adaptation of it in English and Welsh see p. 255, Vol. iv. Parodies.
Staffy was a poor man,
Staffy was a chief;
Staffy in the Lower House
Often came to grief;
So Staffy to the Upper House
Hurriedly has flown,
And left ’em the Lower House
To stay and pick the bone!
Jesse H. Wheeler.
The Weekly Dispatch. July 5, 1885.
Neglected Wails.
Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy had a farm,
Taffy wouldn’t pay his tithes, but kept ’em in his palm;
His Vicar lowered Taffy’s tithes, for the sake of quiet,
Taffy had rejoicings, ending in a riot.
The Landlord sent his Agent, and doubled Taffy’s rent,
Taffy’s now for Welsh Home Rule, and Disestablishment!
Punch. December 4, 1886.
——:o:——
What are little boys made of, made of?
Snaps and snails, and puppy dog’s tails;
And that’s what little boys are made of.
What are little girls made of, made of?
Sugar and spice, and all that’s nice;
And that’s what little girls are made of, made of.
What is an Englishman made of?
Roast beef and jam tart,
And a pint of good Clar’t,
And that’s what an Englishman’s made of.
What is a Frenchman, pray, made of?
Horse steak and frog fritter,
And absinthe so bitter,
And that’s what a Frenchman is made of.
[Therefore, my dears, you must be kind to a Frenchman, and give him some of your nice dinner, whenever you can, and teach him better.]
Shirley Brooks. 1864.
What are some young Misses made of?
Poker and Bang,
Second-hand slang;
Plenty of face,
Air without grace;
Bustle and flounce,
Brains half an ounce;
Dreams but of pelf,
Thoughts but of self;
Life all a lie,
Hang by-and-bye!
That’s what some Misses are made of.
What are most young Johnnies made of?
Needless toothpicking,
Stage door heel-kicking;
Long lemon squashing,
Prodigal washing;
Stock-seller’s model,
Hairdresser’s noddle;
Old schoolboy vices,
Love-lingering for “nicies”;
Blasé pretended,
Unbegun—ended!
That’s what most Johnnies are made of!
Judy. January 3, 1883.
“Dickory,” à la française.
Diggoré, doggoré, doge,
Le rat monte à l’horloge,
Une heure se frappe
Le rat s’échappe
Diggoré, doggoré, doge.
Boys Own Paper. March, 1884.
Mus in Horologio.
Quatit terrore domus,
Est horologio mus.
Tunc hora prima sonuit,
Et murem sic attonuit;
Caret terrore domus—
Non horologio mus.
The Hornet. June 19, 1872.
A Song of a Sell.
Hickery, dickery, dare!
The Socialists met in the Square;
Warren nabs one,
Away the rest run,
Hickery, dickery, dare!
——:o:——
Multiplication is vexation,
Division is as bad;
The Rule of Three, it puzzles me,
And Practice drives me mad!
Poem by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
(Composed on the day His Grace “deprived” Mr. Denison.)
Transubstantiation is vexation,
Consubstantiation is as bad;
Archdeacon D. doth trouble me,
And I rather think he’s mad.
J. B. Cantuar. 1856.
The Khedive’s Summing Up.
Abdication is vexation,
Deposition’s twice as bad;
The Rule of Three it bothers me,
And Bismarck drives me mad.
Punch. June 28, 1879.
(Written shortly before the deposition of the Khedive, by Turkey, France and England.)
A Sum of Sorrows.
The Iligant Nation
Is a vexation,
But Gordon’s twice as bad:
From Redistribution
Comes bitter confusion,
And Egypt’s driven me mad.
By a Publican.
“Application” is vexashun,
“Compensation” ’ll prove bad;
Terms o’ years three is a muzzle for me,
Them practices drives me mad.
Danehill.
Lord S. loqr.
Compensation’s tribulation,
The wheel-tax is as bad,
By Jokin G—
And Licensed V,
I’m fairly driven mad.
Baritone.
Truth, June 14, 1888.
Mobilisation’s desperation,
Inaction is as bad;
The Admiraltee it puzzles “we,”
The Horse Guards drives us mad.
Truth. June 28, 1888.
Shakespeare and Bacon are vexation
Donelly is as bad,
His Cryptogram it puzzles me,
His Cypher drives me mad.
Scott Surtees. 1888.
——:o:——
Please to remember
The Fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot;
I know no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
(About 1651.)
Mitchelstown.
Please to remember
The ninth of September,
Mitchelstown’s murderous shot.
I see no reason
Why Government treason
Should ever be forgot.
Balfour blacksheep,
Have you any gruel?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three plates full.
One for the Parson,
One for the Dame,
And one for the man who joins
The Plan of Campaign.
Ding, dong, dell,
Dillon’s in a cell,
Who put him in?
Servants of the Queen.
Who’ll pull him out?
G. O. M. no doubt.
Newgate.
Truth. June 14, 1888.
Remember, remember, the recreant member
Who with Tories has cast in his lot,
I see no reason why Chamberlain’s treason
Should ever be forgot.
Clever, smart, and spry,
With his eye-glass in his eye,
Send him to the House of Lords
And there let him lie!
A Tory place the traitor to pay;
True Radicals scorn to lash him;
Old Ireland’s curse on his soul to lay,
And the next election to smash him.
John Bull.
The Weekly Dispatch. November, 1888.
A Lay for the Fifth of November.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
And gunpowder treason plot;
I know no reason why winking at treason
Should ever be forgot.
So, holloa, boys, holloa, and bring out the guys
That every true Englishman needs must despise.
Instead of Old Guy, who in years long gone by
Used gunpowder kegs for a tool,
We’ve a certain old man who does all he can
To break up the House with Home Rule.
Bring the effigy out, and take it about;
On to the Bonfire with laughter and shout,
And all the good people who see it will cry,
“Holloa! boys, holloa! for Gladstone the Guy.”
Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
As years have rolled on we have got
Fresh guys for the season of gunpowder treason
So now let us bring out the lot.
Here’s Charley Parnell, and Dillon as well,
With Labby so fond of abuse,
And Harcourt may find a place close behind
With a jar of the Parnellite juice.
And give to each one a moonlighter’s gun,
A mask, and some powder and shot,
With Fenian dynamite somewhere concealed
To finally blow up the lot.
Holloa, boys, holloa, and pile the chips well,
For Gladstone of Hawarden has plenty to sell.
Bring the effigies out and take them about,
On to the bonfire with laughter and shout,
With cheers for the empire, with hooting and cries
Of “Holloa! boys, holloa! boys, down with the guys!”
J. E. Clarke.
Judy. November 7, 1888.
——:o:——
The Husband’s Revenge.
A Warning to wives who will keep bad Cooks.
Provisions raw
Long time he bore,
Remonstrance was in vain;
To escape the scrub
He join’d a club;
Nor dined at home again.
Punch. March 1, 1856.
Epitaph on a Locomotive.
Collisions four
Or five she bore,
The signals wor in vain;
Grown old and rusted,
Her biler busted,
And smash’d the Excursion Train—
“Her end was pieces”
Protection sore long time we bore,
Seditions were in vain;
But now his friends have given him o’er,
He’ll never wake again.
——:o:——
Nursery Rhymes for Cyclists.
Here is a touching little thing to “teach the young idea how to shoot”—down nasty hills:—
“Sing a song of wheeling,
Mind that no one squeals—
Four-and-twenty black boys
Riding on their wheels,
When down hill they ventured,
They ‘braked’ it rather rash,
And four-and-twenty cripples
Resulted from the smash!”
The pathetic address of the bicyclist to his lamp:—
“Twinkle, twinkle, little light
Struggle through the murky night,
Round about the corners trot
Many a blue for-get-me-not (i.e., the Bobby),
Who would drag me to the Beak
For a fine or for a ‘week,’
And they’d always serve me so
If you did not twinkle so!”
“Little Jack Jumber
Sat on his Humber,
Waiting till cows go by,
When one in a flurry
Sent him in a hurry
Sow-so into the old pig-stye!”
Ladies are invited to—
“Ride a machine to What’s-the-name Green,
To see whatever there is to be seen,
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
She shall have music wherever she goes!”
“Jack and Jill
Rode down the hill,
With joke and jeer and laughter,
Jack fell down,
And broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after!”
Jack and Gill came down the hill
Upon a Humber tandem,
Jack turned round to Gill and frowned,
“Eugh!” you don’t understand ’em
Put up your feet, stick to your seat,
I’m going to do a ‘flyer,’
For goodness sake don’t touch the brake.
We’re spilt! oh Jeremyur!
Wheeling Annual. 1885.
——:o:——
Questions for Sir Charles.
O where, O where, are your little wee dogs,
O where are they gone, Sir C.?
Says Chawles “Down in Surrey,
They fled in a hurry,
And never came back to me,”
And where, O where, were your merry men gone
That people should murdered be?
“O, my men were ‘all there,’
In Trafalgar Square,
Looking most militaree.”
But Chawlie, O Chawlie, where were you?
Why didn’t you travel down E.?
“I was up to my eyes
In a Christmas Prize
Composition for Newnes’s T. B.”
Cock Warren.
Who killed Cock Warren?
“I,” said the gin distiller;
“I’m the tyrant killer,
I killed Cock Warren.”
Who killed Cock Warren?
“I,” said the Pall Mall;
“I set him up as well,
Then I killed Cock Warren.”
Who killed Cock Warren?
“I,” said Mr. Graham,
“I’m the hound to bay ’em;
I killed Cock Warren.”
Who killed Cock Warren?
“We,” said the people;
“Clash the bells in the steeple;
We killed Cock Warren.”
H. W. M.
An Epitaph.
Here lies
Sir Charles Warren,
Formerly
Chief Commissioner of Metropolitan Police.
During his Tenure of Office
He Lectured on the Holy Land,
And Trampled Under his Feet
Our Free and ancient laws,
Daily insulting the law-abiding people of London.
Contrary to the Regulations of the Service
He wrote an article in Murray’s Magazine,
The grammar of which was shaky,
And the spelling of which is said to have been corrected
By the Printer’s Devil.
He resigned rather than submit to
Merited censure.
Forbear, pious reader,
To spit upon his tomb,
For though his actions were despotic,
His resignation brought joy and gladness
To the homes of thousands.
“When the wicked perish there is shouting.”
From The Star. November, 1888. Just after the resignation of Sir C. Warren as Chief Commissioner of the London Police, much to the delight of the London people.
——:o:——
In Carols of Cockayne (London, Chatto & Windus, 1874) the late Mr. Henry S. Leigh gave some poetical versions of Nursery Rhymes, which he termed “Chivalry for the Cradle.” The stories selected were “Humpty-Dumpty,” “Ride a Cock-horse to Banbury Cross,” and “Babie Bunting.”
The Romaunt of Humpty-Dumpty.
’Tis midnight, and the moonbeam sleeps
Upon the garden sward:
My lady in yon turret keeps
Her tearful watch and ward.
“Beshrew me!” mutters, turning pale,
The stalwart seneschal;
“What’s he that sitteth, clad in mail,
Upon our castle wall?”
“Arouse thee, friar of orders gray;
What, ho! bring book and bell!
Ban yonder ghastly thing, I say;
And, look ye, ban it well.
By cock and pye, the Humpty’s face!”—
The form turn’d quickly round;
Then totter’d from its resting-place—
* * * * *
That night the corse was found.
The king, with hosts of fighting men,
Rode forth at break of day;
Ah! never gleam’d the sun till then
On such a proud array.
But all that army, horse and foot,
Attempted, quite in vain,
Upon the castle wall to put
The Humpty up again.
The Ballad of Babye Bunting.
The Knight is away in the merry green wood,
Where he hunts the wild rabbit and roe:
He is fleet in the chase as the late Robin Hood—
He is fleeter in quest of the foe.
The nurse is at home in the castle, and sings
To the babe that she rocks at her breast:
She is crooning of love and of manifold things,
And is bidding the little one rest.
“Oh, slumber, my darling! oh, slumber apace!
For thy father will shortly be here;
And the skin of some rabbit that falls in the chase
Shall be thine for a tippet, my dear.”
H. Dumpteii Tristis Historia.
Humptius Dumpteius
Sedebat stulte muro:
Humptius, heu, decidit
Nec fatum in obscuro.
Non omnes equi regii,
Non viri potuere
Pristinam rectitudinem
Dumpteio præbere.
Ad Infantem Buntinii.
Buntincule beate!
Pater venatur catè.
Pellem feret cuniculi,
Ut vestis sit Buntinculi.
The Hornet.
——:o:——
THE MONTHS.
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
February has twenty-eight alone,
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting leap-year, that’s the time,
When February’s days are twenty-nine.
These lines occur in an old play, “The Return from Parnassus,” printed in London in 1606, they may have been derived from the following old poem De Computo, written in the thirteenth century:—
“En avril, en juing, en septembre
A .xxx. jours et en novembre:
Tout li autre ont .xxxj jour,
Fors fevriers qi est li plus cour,
En soi que .xxviij. jors n’a,
Ne plus ne meins n’i avra ja
Fors en l’an qe bissextres vient,
Adont en a, einsi avient,
.xxix., de tant est creüs,
L’an que bixestres est cheüs.”
Dirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
From December up to May,
The rain it raineth every day.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Without a blessed gleam of sun;
And if any had two-and-thirty,
They’d be just as wet, and twice as dirty.
Figaro. 1873.
A Summery Summary.
Thirty-one days hath the month of May,
Most of them chilly, and none of them gay,
June—less obnoxious by one day—has thirty,
Every one, more or less, dirty and squirty.
Thirty plus one are the “whack” of July,
None of them sunny, and few of them dry,
Three months of gloom that each year groweth glummer!
That sums the sell that is called English Summer!
Useful Mems. for 1885.
January is first month
(It commences with the oneth).
February’s days are twenty-eight
(Wanting more, four years you wait).
In March you find mad hares and Lent
(25th’s the day for rent).
April’s days are only thirty
(And even most of those are dirty!)
Thirty-one there are in May
(24th’s Victoria’s day).
Thirty days are there in June
(Rent-day the 24th—too soon!)
Thirty-one days in July
(A month for eating greengage pie).
In August thirty-one you’ll find
(If you don’t care, well, I don’t mind).
Thirty days, please, hath September
(And 29th’s the rent, remember!)
Thirty-one days hath October
(Quite enough, if you keep sober!)
November it has thirty (why?—
You’d best ask some one else than I).
December—thirty-one (contrive
To scrape up rent by 25).
——:o:——
The Three Jolly Ratsmen.
(With Apologies to the Memory of Randolph Caldecott).
It’s of three politicians, and a rattin’ they did go;
An’ they ratted, an’ they ranted, an’ they blew their horns also.
Look ye there!
An’ one said, “Mind yo’r een, an’ keep yo’r noses reet i’ th’ wind,
An’ then, by scent or seet we’ll leet o’summat to our mind.”
Look ye there!
(Portraits of Chamberlain, Goschen and Hartington.)
They ratted, an’ they ranted, an’ the first thing they did find
Was a Grand Old Statesman in a field, an’ him they left behind.
Look ye there!
One said it was a Statesman, an’ another he said, “Nay;
It’s just a Liberal Party, that has been and gone astray.”
Look ye there!
They ratted an’ they ranted, an’ the next thing they did find,
Was a gruntin’, grindin’ grindlestone, an’ that they left behind.
Look ye there.
One said it was a grindlestone, another he said, “Nay,
It’s nought but a fossil Quaker that’s gone an’ roll’t away.”
Look ye there!
(Portrait of John Bright.)
They ratted an’ they ranted, an’ the next thing they did find
Was a bull calf in a Tory fold, an’ that they left behind.
Look ye there!
One said it was a bull calf, an’ another he said, “Nay,
It’s just a little jackass that has never learnt to bray.”
Look ye there!
(Lord R. Churchill).
They ratted an’ they ranted, an’ the next thing they did find
Was a two-three children leaving school, an’ these they left behind.
Look ye there!
One said they were children, but another he said, “Nay,
They’re no’ but little Radicals, so we’ll leave ’em to their play.”
Look ye there!
They ratted an’ they ranted, an’ the next thing they did find,
Was a poet singing in a ditch, an’ him they left behind.
Look ye there!
One said it was a poet, an’ another he said, “Nay;
It’s only just a poor young man whose wits are stole away.”
Look ye there!
(A. C. Swinburne.)
They ratted an’ they ranted, an’ the next thing they did find,
Was two young lovers in a lane, an’ these they left behind.
Look ye there!
One said that they were lovers, but another he said “Nay;
They’re two poor wandering lunatics: come, let us go away.”
Look ye there!
(Erin and John Morley.)
So they ratted an’ they ranted till, the setting of the sun,
And they’d naught to bring away at last when election time was done.
Look ye there!
Then one unto the other said, “This rattin’ doesn’t pay;
But we’n powler’t up an’ down a bit, an’ had a rattlin’ day.”
Look ye there!
Pall Mall Gazette. July 7, 1886.
Mr. Randolph Caldecott must have founded his well known children’s ballad upon the following very old nursery rhyme:—
There were three jovial Welshmen,
As I have heard them say,
And they would go a hunting
Upon St. David’s day.
All the day they hunted,
And nothing could they find,
But a ship a-sailing,
A-sailing with the wind.
One said it was a ship,
The other he said, nay;
The third said it was a house,
With the chimney blown away.
And all the night they hunted,
And nothing could they find
But the moon a-gliding,
A-gliding with the wind.
One said it was the moon,
The other he said, nay;
The third said it was a cheese,
And half o’t cut away.
——:o:——
The following old rhyme was sung to the tune of Chevy Chace. It was taken from a poetical tale in the “Choyce Poems” printed in London in 1662. John Poole introduced the song in his Hamlet Travestie in 1810, without any acknowledgment, perhaps thinking it was too well known to require mention.
Three children sliding on the ice
Upon a summer’s day,
It so fell out they all fell in,
The rest they ran away.
Now had these children been at home,
Or sliding on dry ground,
Ten thousand pounds to one penny
They had not all been drown’d.
You parents all that children have,
And you that eke have none,
If you would have them safe abroad,
Pray keep them safe at home.
Carmen Caninum.
Labentes super glaciem,
In medio æstatis,
Tres pueri sunt mersi, et
Succubuêre fatis.
Ah, si in terrâ lapsi sint,
Vel domi si mansissent
Sestertium ad denarium
Non aquâ periisent.
Parentes quibus nati sunt,
Et vos qui non habetis
Si salvos vultis foris hos,
Clausos domi servetis.
The Hornet. 1872.
——:o:——
THE COW.
Thank you, pretty cow, that made
Pleasant milk to soak my bread,
Ev’ry day and ev’ry night,
Warm, and fresh, and sweet, and white.
Do not chew the hemlock rank,
Growing on the weedy bank;
But the yellow cowslips eat,
They perhaps will make it sweet.
Where the purple violet grows,
Where the bubbling water flows,
Where the grass is fresh and fine,
Pretty cow, go there and dine.
To a Pet Reptile.
Thank you, pretty spotted snake,
Thus to as your mistress try me.
What a charming pet you make,
Cold and creepy, damp and slimy!
How you wriggle up my sleeve.
How you coil around my shoulder
Causing visitors to leave,
Terrifying each beholder.
Come, then, where your breakfast waits,
Reptile of eccentric habits;
Come, and seal the several fates
Of these frogs and two plump rabbits.
——:o:——
THE CAT.
I love little Pussy, her coat is so warm,
And if I don’t hurt her, she’ll do me no harm;
So I’ll ne’er pull her tail, nor drive her away.
But pussy and I together will play;
She shall sit by my side, and I’ll give her some food,
And she’ll love me because I am gentle and good.
To my New Pet.
I love my ichneumon,
Its tongue is so queer,
Its ways are so human,
It has such a leer.
’Tis fond of the emmet
For dinner and tea;
But ere you condemn it,
Pray listen to me.
And know that though ants it
Delights in so much;
Its fiercest foe grants it
An uncle won’t touch.
“Be lenient with lobsters, and ever kind to crabs,
And be not disrespectful to cuttle-fish or dabs;
Chase not the Cochin-China, chaff not the ox obese,
And babble not of feather-beds in company with geese.
Be tender with the tadpole, and let the limpet thrive,
Be merciful to mussels, don’t skin your eels alive;
When talking to a turtle don’t mention calipee—
Be always kind to animals wherever you may be.”
——:o:——
Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes;
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.
Alice in Wonderland.
Speak when not spoken to,
Sulk when you’re chid,
Bang the door after you
Good little kid!
——:o:——
Be kind to the panther! for when thou wert young,
In thy country far over the sea,
’Twas a panther ate up thy papa and mama,
And had several mouthfuls of thee!
Be kind to the badger! for who shall decide
The depth of his badgerly soul?
And think of the tapir, when flashes the lamp
O’er the fast and the free flowing bowl.
Be kind to the camel! nor let word of thine
Ever put up his bactrian back;
And cherish the she-kangaroo with her bag,
Nor venture to give her the sack.
Be kind to the ostrich! for how canst thou hope
To have such a stomach as it?
And when the proud day of your “bridal” shall come,
Do give the poor birdie a “bit.”
Be kind to the walrus! nor ever forget
To have it on Tuesday to tea;
But butter the crumpets on only one side,
Save such as are eaten by thee.
Be kind to the bison! and let the jackal
In the light of thy love have a share;
And coax the ichneumon to grow a new tail,
And have lots of larks in its lair!
Be kind to the bustard! that genial bird,
And humor its wishes and ways;
And when the poor elephant suffers from bile,
Then tenderly lace up his stays!
Figaro’s Natural History. (O. P. Q. Smiff.)
——:o:——
MARY’S LAMB.
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.
He followed her to school one day,—
That was against the rule;
It made the children laugh and play,
To see a lamb at school.
(Two verses omitted.)
Dot Lambs vot Mary haf got.
Mary haf got a leetle lambs already:
Dose vool vas vite like shnow;
Und every times dot Mary did vend oud,
Dot lambs vent also oud vid Mary.
Dot lambs did follow Mary von day to der school-house,
Vich was obbosition to der rules of der schoolmaster,
Alzo, vich it dit caused dose schillen to schmile out loud
Ven dey did saw dose lambs on der insides of der school-house.
Und so dot schoolmaster did kick dot lambs quick oud,
Likevise, dot lambs dit loaf around on der outsides,
Und did shoo der flies mit his tail off patiently aboud
Undil Mary did come also from dot school-house oud.
Und den dot lambs did run right away quick to Mary,
Und dit make his het on Mary’s arms,
Like he would said, “I dond vos schkared
Mary would keep from droubles ena how.”
“Vot vos de reason aboud it, of dot lambs and Mary?”
Dose schillen did ask it, dot schoolmaster;
Vell, doand you know it, dot Mary lov dose lambs already,
Dot schoolmaster did zaid.
Moral.
Und zo, alzo, dot moral vas,
Boued Mary’s lambs’ relations:
Of you lofe dose like she lofe dose,
Dot lambs vas obligations.
Mary had a Little Lamb.
A Tale.
Mary was the proprietress of a diminutive incipient sheep, whose outer covering was as devoid of colour as congealed atmospheric vapour, and to all localities to which Mary perambulated, her young South-down was morally sure to follow. It tagged her to the dispensary of learning one diurnal section of time, which was contrary to all precedent, and excited cachinnation to the seminary attendants when they perceived the presence of a young mutton at the establishment of instruction. Consequently the preceptor expelled him from the interior, but he continued to remain in the immediate vicinity, without fretfulness, until Mary once more became visible.
“What caused this specimen of the genus ovis to bestow so much affection on Mary?” the impetuous progeny vociferated.
“Because Mary reciprocated the wool-producer’s esteem, you understand,” the teacher answered.
——:o:——
Mary’s Little Lamb.
Verses culled from different Authors.
Oh, who has not heard of Sweet Mary’s pet sheep,
With fleece like the lilies by Alaway’s stream,
When the day on the breast of the night falls asleep
With the fragrance of lilies to perfume its dream?
The love of that mutton for Mary was more
Like the nightingale’s song by the swift Bendemeer
Which born in the grove, seeks a grave on the shore
As laughter or music is drowned in a tear.
Thomas Moore.
I saw that lamb rise from the hallowed ground
That emperors have kissed as they resigned their rule;
I saw him rise like Venice rise and straddle round,
There where the wraith of Time prowls like a ghoul
And centuries have sate, each on its stool,
Then, with a spring of ages, saw him bound
To Mary’s side, and down the sombre cool
Dark corridors of rotting years he followed her to school
Lord Byron.
Bounce, bounce, bounce,
For Mary’s poor pet wool!
But the tenderness of three days’ grace
Can’t get him back to school;
Oh, well for the sailor lad
That he bit his sister’s thumb,
For the contribution box goes round
And the lamb is deaf and dumb!
Tennyson.
Prithee, good pedagogue, we lend our ears
To feed on explanation. It appears
That this pet lamb has passed the world’s estate
Of treachery, and love that loves to prate
Of love, while loving but the sound
The gnashing lips that bear it breathe around,
Beseemeth he would with her spangle nights
And wear her as the stars wear satellites,
To him she is the lightning to the cloud,
The rain to summer, to death the shroud,
Dreams to eyes, sleep to the weary, rest
To the yearning or ambitious breast.
We prithee, pedagogue, if so be you know,
Why does this sheep love little Mary so?
Shakespeare.
——:o:——
William had a big gingham,
Its folds were strong and broad;
And everywhere that William came
That gingham too abode.
Lord Rosey put it up one day,
And many sheltered there;
It made the Tories laugh and play
To see the huge affair.
To shut it up their leaders tried,
But still its folds are spread,
And ’neath them Libs and Rads abide
Around their Grand Old Head.
“Why do they all love William so?”
The jealous Tories cry.
“Because he trusteth us you know,”
The people loud reply.
Scrawler.
Truth. October 15, 1885.
Mary had a little corn
Upon her little toe,
And everywhere that Mary went
The corn was sure to go.
But Mary bought an Alcock’s shield,
And stuck it on her toe;
And then she ran about alone,
For the corn soon had to go.
And Mary, grown up, tells the tale,
Of that time, long ago,
When she was little Mary with
That corn upon her toe.
Mary had a little lamb,
With coat as black as soot,
And into Mary’s cup of milk
It put its dirty foot.
Now Mary, a straightforward girl,
Who hated any sham,
Rapped out a naughty little word
That rhymed with Mary’s lamb.
Hussar.
Truth. September 30, 1886.
Mary had a pot of jam
Presented by the cook,
And everywhere that Mary went,
The luscious jar she took.
She carried it to school one day,
Which was against the rule;
And when the teacher looked away,
She ate the jam in school.
At last the teacher found her out,
And, oh! was most severe:
But what the imposition was
It doth not well appear.
Now Mary soon began to roll
Her head upon her arm,
And felt dismayed, and much afraid
The jam had done her harm.
“Oh! why does Mary’s head ache so”
The curious children cry,
“Quaejam est, ea sic erit,”
The teacher did reply.
C. W. G.
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle. 1887.
Joseph and his Jesse.
An Adaptation of “Mary had a Little Lamb,” said to
have been Sung during the Ayr Contest, in which
Mr. Collings took an active part.
Joseph had a little lamb—a little lamb—
Joseph had a little lamb,
Which loved its master so,
That everywhere that Joseph went—that Joseph went—
That everywhere that Joseph went,
The lamb was sure to go.
It followed him so close about—so close about—
It followed him so close about,
To every place you know,
It made the people laugh and shout—laugh and shout—
It made the people laugh and shout,
To see the lamb and Joe.
And when the laborers turned it out—turned it out—
And when the laborers turned it out,
Yet still it lingered near,
And wandered helplessly about—helplessly about—
And wandered helplessly about,
Till Joseph did appear.
“What makes the lamb love Joseph so—love Joseph so—
What makes the lamb love Joseph so?”
The “Rural Laborers” cry,
“Why Joseph loves the lamb, you know—the lamb, you know”—
Why Joseph loves the lamb—you know,
And Jesse makes reply, Baa! Baa!
The Star. June 18, 1888.
Mary had a cactus plant
So modestly it grew,
Shooting its little fibers out
It lived upon the dew.
Her little brother often heard
Her say it lived on air,
And so he pulled it up one day
And placed it in a chair.
Placed it in a chair he did,
Then laughed with ghoulish glee—
Placed it in the old arm chair
Under the trysting tree.
Nor thought of Mary’s lover,
Who called each night to woo,
Or even dreamed they’d take a stroll,
As lovers often do.
The eve drew on. The lover came.
They sought the trysting tree,
Where has the little cactus gone?
The lover—where is he!
——:o:——
SONG.
Air.—“If I had a donkey vot vouldn’t go,
Do you think I’d wallop, &c.”
Had I an ass averse to speed,
Deem’st thou I’d strike him? No, indeed
Mark me, I’d try persuasion’s art,
For cruelty offends my heart:
Had all resembled me, I ween,
Martin, thy law had needless been
Of speechless brutes from blows to screen
The poor head;
For had I an ass averse to speed
I ne’er would strike him; no indeed!
I’d give him hay, and cry, “Proceed,”
And “Go on, Edward!”
Why speak I thus? This very morn,
I saw that cruel William Burn,
Whilst crying “Greens!” upon his course,
Assail his ass with all his force;
He smote him o’er the head and thighs,
Till tears bedimm’d the creature’s eyes!
Oh! ’twas too much. My blood ’gan rise,
And I exclaim’d,
“Had I an” &c.
Burn turn’d and cried, with scornful eye,
“Perchance thou’rt one of Martin’s fry,
And seek’st occasion base to take,
The vile informer’s gain to make.”
Word of denial though I spoke,
Full on my brow his fury broke,
And thus, while I return’d the stroke,
I exclaim’d,
“Had I an” &c.
To us, infringing thus the peace,
Approach’d its guardians—the police;
And, like inevitable Fate,
Bore us to where stern Justice sate:
Her minister the tale I told,
And to support my word, made bold
To crave he would the ass behold:
“For,” I declared,
“Had I an” &c.
They call’d the creature into court,
Where, sooth to say, he made some sport,
With ears erect, and parted jaws,
As though he strove to plead his cause:
I gain’d the palm of feelings kind;
The ass was righted; William fined.
For Justice, one with me in mind,
Exclaim’d, by her Minister,
“Had I an” &c.
Cried William to his Judge, “’Tis hard
(Think not the fine that I regard),
But things have reach’d a goodly pass—
One may not beat a stubborn ass!”
Nought spoke the Judge, but closed his book;
So William thence the creature took,
Eyeing me—ah! with what a look,
As gently whispering in his ear, I said,
“William, had I an,” &c.
Punch. February 17, 1844.
The Cry of the Children.
(A propos of Jumbo.)
If I owned Jumbó,
(Who declines to go)
Would I sell him to a show?
No, no, not I!
When the Titan I saw
Firmly plant his paw,
I would shout “Hooraw!”
For his bra-ve-ry.
Chorus.
If an army of Yankees should proffer their pay,
I’d button my pockets, and send them away.
* * * * *
Punch. March 4, 1884.
On Lord Gumboil.
What are you doing, my pretty maid?
I’m mashing a lord, kind sir, she said.
Then pray be careful, my pretty maid;
I’m more than seven, sir, she said.
What is his father, my pretty maid?
His father’s a lawyer, sir, she said.
Say, has he married you, my pretty maid?
No, an it please you, kind sir, she said.
What will you do then, my pretty maid?
I’ll sue on his promise, sir, she said.
Then has he a fortune, my pretty maid!
He’s got one—at present—sir, she said.
Penzance.
The Weekly Dispatch. April 13, 1884.
There was an old statesman,
And what do you think?
He used mountains of paper,
And oceans of ink,
And even on postcards would issue his fiat,
And yet this great statesman
Could never rest quiet.
August Fifteenth.
Truth. June 14, 1888.
——:o:——
The Legislative Organ.
[“The capacity of our Legislative Organ is limited. Its strength is overtaxed. In its perspective, the first place is held by the great and urgent Irish question. Still more limited are the means, especially as to the future, possessed by a man on the margin of his eightieth year.”—Mr. Gladstone’s letter.]
Seated long since at the organ,
I strummed in my weary way;
And my fancies wandered widely
For a popular air to play.
I know not what I was doing,
(And I cannot explain it still),
But I struck one chord of faction;
Like the sound of a Home Rule Bill.
It startled the House and the Empire,
With a fantasy wild and new;
And it shattered a mighty party
Like a thunderbolt from the blue.
And I struggled and “reconstructed,”
But passions I could not cool;
So I gave up my seat at the organ,
Where I might not play “Home Rule.”
Yet still on that worn-out Organ
I shall strike those chords once more;
And sing in life’s sunless gloaming,
The song that I learnt of yore;
And the Law of the Land shall quaver
In tune to a plundering Plan,
When the grand Old English Organ
Shall throb to the Grand Old Man.
The St. James’s Gazette. 1889.
——:o:——
An Utter Passion uttered Utterly.
This poem, inserted on [page 81], was disfigured by a misprint, the third line should have read:—
“And drapen in tear-colour’d minivers.”
The author (Dr. Todhunter) wishes it to be understood that the poem was intended as a skit on the imitators of Mr. Swinburne’s style in general, and not on any particular individual. It was therefore a little out of place amongst the Parodies of Mr. Oscar Wilde, as it was not intended to refer in any way to the writings of that gentleman.—Ed. Parodies.
——:o:——
PARODIES & POEMS
IN
PRAISE OF TOBACCO.
he following poems, devoted entirely to the laudation of Tobacco, either as smoked in the pipe, cigar, or cigarette, or as taken in the form of snuff, have been collected from many different works. One of the principal sources of information has been that entertaining journal Cope’s Tobacco Plant, which has now unfortunately ceased to exist. Another useful authority was a little book published at the office of Tobacco in Gracechurch Street, London, entitled Tobacco Jokes for Smoking Folks, which contained many amusing anecdotes, and humorous illustrations. A few of the latter are here inserted by the kind permission of the proprietors. Following the Parodies some of the most noted Poems on Tobacco are given, so as to make the collection on this interesting topic more complete.
One of the earliest burlesque poems in praise of Tobacco was that written by Mr. Isaac Hawkins Browne about one hundred and fifty years ago, entitled “A Pipe of Tobacco, in imitation of Six Several Authors.”
This poem has been repeatedly reprinted, although there is little in it that strikes a modern reader as either remarkably humorous or clever. The authors imitated are Colley Cibber (the Poet Laureate), Ambrose Phillips, James Thomson, Edward Young, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s. It is stated that the imitation of Ambrose Phillips was not written by Mr. I. H. Browne, but was sent to him by a friend, whose name has not been transmitted to us. This is to be regretted, as this particular imitation (the second) is generally considered the best in the collection. According to Ritson this was written for the collection by Dr. John Hoadley.
A PIPE OF TOBACCO:
In Imitation of Six Several Authors.
Imitation I.
Laudes egregii Cæsaris——
Culpâ deterere ingenî.
Hor.
A New-Year’s Ode.
Recitative.
Old battle-array, big with horror is fled,
And olive-robed peace again lifts up her head.
Sing, ye Muses, Tobacco, the blessing of peace;
Was ever a nation so blessed as this?
Air.
When summer suns grow red with heat,
Tobacco tempers Phœbus’ ire,
When wintry storms around us beat,
Tobacco cheers with gentle fire.
Yellow autumn, youthful spring,
In thy praises jointly sing.
Recitativo.
Like Neptune, Cæsar guards Virginian fleets,
Fraught with Tobacco’s balmy sweets;
Old Ocean trembles at Britannia’s pow’r,
And Boreas is afraid to roar.
Air.
Happy mortal! he who knows
Pleasure which a Pipe bestows;
Curling eddies climb the room,
Wafting round a mild perfume.
Recitativo.
Let foreign climes the vine and orange boast,
While wastes of war deform the teeming coast;
Britannia, distant from each hostile sound,
Enjoys a Pipe, with ease and freedom crown’d;
E’en restless Faction finds itself most free,
Or if a slave, a slave to Liberty.
Air.
Smiling years that gayly run,
Round the Zodiack with the sun,
Tell, if ever you have seen
Realms so quiet and serene.
Britain’s sons no longer now
Hurl the bar, or twang the bow,
Nor of crimson combat think,
But securely smoke and drink.
Chorus.
Smiling years that gayly run
Round the Zodiack with the sun,
Tell, if ever you have seen
Realms so quiet and serene.
Imitation II.
Tenues fugit ceu fumus in auras.
Virg.
Little tube of mighty pow’r,
Charmer of an idle hour,
Object of my warm desire,
Lip of wax, and eye of fire:
And thy snowy taper waist,
With my finger gently brac’d;
And thy pretty swelling crest,
With my little stopper prest,
And the sweetest bliss of blisses,
Breathing from thy balmy kisses.
Happy thrice, and thrice agen,
Happiest he of happy men;
Who when agen the night returns,
When agen the taper burns;
When agen the cricket’s gay,
(Little cricket, full of play)
Can afford his tube to feed
With the fragrant Indian weed:
Pleasure for a nose divine,
Incense of the god of wine.
Happy thrice, and thrice agen,
Happiest he of happy men.
Imitation III.
——Prorumpit ad æthera nubem
Turbine fumantem piceo.
Virg.
O thou, matur’d by glad Hesperian suns,
Tobacco, fountain pure of limpid[16] truth,
That looks the very soul; whence pouring thought
Swarms all the mind; absorpt is yellow care,
And[17] at each puff imagination burns.
Flash on thy bard, and with exalting fires
Touch the mysterious lip, that chaunts thy praise
In strains to mortal sons of earth unknown.
Behold an engine, wrought from tawny mines
Of ductile clay, with plastic[18] virtue form’d,
And glaz’d magnifick o’er, I grasp, I fill.
From Pætotheke[19] with pungent pow’rs perfum’d,
Itself[20] one tortoise all, where shines imbib’d
Each parent ray; then rudely ram’d illume,
With the red touch of zeal-enkindling sheet,
Mark’d[21] with Gibsonian lore; forth issue clouds,
Thought-thrilling, thirst-inciting clouds around,
And many-mining fires: I all the while,
Lolling at ease, inhale[22] the breezy balm.
But chief, when Bacchus wont with thee to join
In genial strife and orthodoxal ale,
Stream[23] life and joy into the Muses’ bowl.
Oh be thou still my great inspirer, thou
My Muse; oh fan me with thy zephyrs boon,
While I, in clouded tabernacle shrin’d,
Burst forth all oracle and mystick song.
Imitation IV.
——Bullatis mihi nugis,
Pagina turgescat, dare pondus idonea fumo.
Pers.
Criticks avaunt; Tobacco is my theme;
Tremble like hornets at the blasting steam.
And you, court-insects, flutter not too near
Its light, nor buzz within the scorching sphere.
Pollio, with flame like thine, my verse inspire,
So shall the Muse from smoke elicit fire.
Coxcombs prefer the tickling sting of snuff;
Yet all their claim to wisdom is—a puff:
Lord Fopling smokes not—for his teeth afraid:
Sir Tawdry smokes not—for he wears brocade.
Ladies, when pipes are brought, affect to swoon;
They love no smoke, except the smoke of town;
But courtiers hate the puffing tribe,—no matter,
Strange if they love the breath that cannot flatter!
Its foes but shew their ignorance; can he
Who scorns the leaf of knowledge, love the tree?
The tainted templar (more prodigious yet)
Rails at Tobacco, tho’ it makes him—spit.
Citronia vows it has an odious stink;
She will not smoke (ye gods!) but she will drink:
And chaste Prudella (blame her if you can)
Says, pipes are us’d by that vile creature Man:
Yet crowds remain, who still its worth proclaim,
While some for pleasure smoke, and some for fame:
Fame, of our actions universal spring,
For which we drink, eat, sleep, smoke,—ev’rything.
Imitation V.
——Solis ad ortus
Vanescit fumus.
Lucan.
Blest leaf! whose aromatick gales dispense
To templars modesty, to parsons sense:
So raptur’d priests, at fam’d Dodona’s shrine
Drank inspiration from the steam divine.
Poison that cures, a vapour that affords
Content, more solid than the smile of lords:
Rest to the weary, to the hungry food,
The last kind refuge of the wise and good.
Inspir’d by thee, dull cits adjust the scale
Of Europe’s peace, when other statesmen fail.
By thee protected, and thy sister, beer,
Poets rejoice, nor think the bailiff near.
Nor less the critick owns thy genial aid,
While supperless he plies the piddling trade.
What tho’ to love and soft delights a foe,
By ladies hated, hated by the beau,
Yet social freedom, long to courts unknown,
Fair health, fair truth, and virtue are thy own.
Come to thy poet, come with healing wings,
And let me taste thee unexcis’d by kings.
Imitation VI.
Ex fumo dare lucem.
Hor.
Boy! bring an ounce of Freeman’s best,
And bid the vicar be my guest:
Let all be placed in manner due,
A pot wherein to spit or spue,
And London Journal and Free Briton,
Of use to light a pipe——
* * * * *
This village, unmolested yet
By troopers, shall be my retreat:
Who cannot flatter, bribe, betray;
Who cannot write or vote for pay.
Far from the vermin of the town,
Here let me rather live, my own,
Doze o’er a pipe, whose vapour bland
In sweet oblivion lulls the land;
Of all which at Vienna passes,
As ignorant as —— Brass is:
And scorning rascals to caress,
Extoll the days of good Queen Bess,
When first Tobacco blest our isle,
Then think of other Queens—and smile.
Come jovial pipe, and bring along
Midnight revelry and song;
The merry catch, the madrigal,
That echoes sweet in City Hall;
The parson’s pun, the smutty tale
Of country justice o’er his ale.
I ask not what the French are doing,
Or Spain to compass Britain’s ruin:
Britons, if undone, can go,
Where Tobacco loves to grow.
——:o:——
HORACE.
In imitation of Epode III.
An Ode against Tobacco.
For parricide, that worst of crimes,
Hemlock’s cold draught, in ancient times,
Scarce taught the rogue repentance:
But had tobacco then been known,
Its burning juices swallow’d down,
Had prov’d a fitter sentence.
How callous are the lab’rers jaws,
Who this dire weed both smokes and chaws,
And feasts upon the venom!
While I by chance a taste once got,
That so inflam’d my mouth and throat,
I thought all hell was in ’em.
Sure, this vile drug, that serv’d me thus,
The deadly viper’s poisonous juice
Infus’d must have great share in;
Or else some hag, with midnight wish,
Procur’d it as a special dish
Of Satan’s own preparing.
This was the charm Medea taught
Her dear advent’rous Argonaut,
To steal the Golden Fleece with;
Down bulls and dragons gaping throat
A quid he threw, which, quick as thought,
The brutes were laid at peace with.
Ting’d in tobacco’s baleful oil,
Her presents made her rival broil
Past Jason’s art of quenching:
And when he swore revenge, the witch
Mounted aloft astride her switch,
Pleas’d she had spoil’d his wenching.
Under the blue I’d rather live,
And the sun’s fiercest rays receive,
How apt soe’er to burn us:
Nay, Hercules’s shirt I’d wear,
Or any flame much sooner bear,
Than a pipe’s fiery furnace.
My merry lord, if quid or whiff
You ever taste of this damn’d leaf,
May you meet with what you dread most,
May Chloe, when with her you lie,
And press to kiss her, put you by,
And rather hug the bed post!
From The Gentleman’s Magazine. May, 1744.
——:o:——
Elegy.
Written over an old Pipe-Box.
The postman hits his last rat-tat to day,
And hies him to his lowly home with glee;
My wife reposes in her white array;
The night is left to “’Bacca” and to me.
Now starts a glimmering bottle on the sight,
And all the air a spirit perfume holds;
At sight of me the cockroach takes to flight,
And leaves awhile my common dips and moulds.
All raving now, at yonder area gate,
The moping “bobbies” to the cooks complain
That soldiers, with their padded breasts elate,
Molest their ancient privilege and reign.
Beneath this hingeless lid, bound round with braid,
Wherein no anti-vermin dare to creep
(Each one done brown, aside for ever laid),
The ancient tutors of my smoking sleep.
The bull-like voice of nicotinian Bob,
The sylph-like tones of sweet, poetic, Ned,
The fierce denouncings of the anti-mob,
No more shall call them from their narrow bed.
For them no more the fierce fusee shall burn,
Or plugs be purchased and put in with care;
In memory only, I to them return;
Their smoke, too strong, would all my nerves impair.
Oft have they lain with me in some green field;
Their solace oft some stiff-neck’d care has broke.
How strangely sorrow to the pipe doth yield,
And joy descends e’en through ascending smoke.
Let not philosophy at smoking mock—
Philosophy is but its prototype;
Nor e’en religion hear with spurning shock,
The short and simple annals of the pipe.
* * * * *
Ah me! In this neglected box is laid
Old pipes, once glowing with the scented fire;
Pipes for which shillings, ay, and pounds were paid.
Start not—’tis true, or I’m a living liar!
But pipes on pipes of “Bacca,” day by day,
With poison laden, did their fates control;
Strong-smelling oil stopp’d up the narrow way,
And now they may no more console my soul.
Full many a pipe, of purest briar root,
The stern schoolmaster confiscates and breaks;
Full many a clay, too, seized is by the brute,
And flung with tops and marbles, buttons, cakes.
One colour’d meerschaum that, in hidden poke
Conceal’d, full many a day in school did lie,
Escaped the notice of the stern-eyed bloke,
To linger in this box and never die.
To take excursion by the iron way,
In smoking-carriage, where thick clouds arise;
To fumigate—(tho’ anti-smokers bray),
And blow their ashes into people’s eyes—
Their state forbids. Now, circumscribed they lie,
For pleasure useless, and for work as well;
Weak, helpless, all, I bid them now good-by;
For, tho’ so weak, dear me, how strong they smell!
For thee, who, brooding thus with bended head,
Deploring much their sad and helpless state,
If chance, by nicotinian feelings led,
Some brother smoker shall inquire thy fate:
Haply some wooden-headed clown may say:
“I’ve often seed him, when the ale-house closed,
Wandering along the all-too narrow way,
His eyes a quiver, like to one who dozed;
“There, at the foot of yonder painted sign,
That looks more like a pig than like a cow,
He’d drink his beer—it would’nt run to wine—
And smoke his pipe, all reckless—anyhow.
“Or down the street, to put his watch in pawn,
Feeling for vanish’d coppers, he would rove,
His old hat on, his bristly chin unshorn.
He liked his beer, but warn’t a drunken cove.
“One night I miss’d him at the accustom’d pub;
Unoccupied remain’d his favourite seat.
Another came. Where was he?—sore the rub;
In losing him, we lost a look’d-for treat.
“The next, with solemn march, in blue array
(A crowd behind with strong tumultuous din,)
Two bobbies came. They’d found him on the way,
With beer o’ercome, and so they ran him in!”
The Epitaph.
Here rests, with his old head upon a stone,
A man who smoked till he did reason drown.
To-morrow morn the mayor, all fully blown,
Will frown on him, and fine him half-a-crown.
H. L.
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. September, 1874.
Hamlet’s Soliloquy on Tobacco.
To smoke or not to smoke, that is the question:
Whether a mild cigar assists digestion;
Or, whether it begets a kind of quaintness,
Which some would say was nothing but a faintness;
To smoke—to drink and then to go to bed;
To find a pillow for an aching head;
To snore—perchance to dream! and half your senses scare
With visionary demons or nightmare;
To wake, in perspiration nicely dished,
’Tis a consummation hardly to be wished;
For who would bear the kicks, cuffs, and abuse
Of this base world, when he might cook his goose
Upon his toasting fork? Or who would care
For half the motley groups which at him stare,
Some morning early, stuck before the bench,
When soda-water would his fever quench,
But that a little thing within doth call?
Thus porter doth make rumuns of us all!
And thus our resolution to keep sober
Is drown’d and soon forgot in good October.
But hush! my Phelia comes, the pretty dear!
Oh! think of me love—when you fetch your beer.
Anonymous.
To Smoke, or not to Smoke.
To smoke, or not to smoke—that is the question!
Whether ’tis better to abjure the habit,
And trust the warnings of a scribbling doctor,
Or buy at once a box of best Havanas,
And ten a day consume them? To smoke, to puff,
Nay more, to waste the tender fabric of the lungs
And risk consumption and its thousand ills
The practice leads to—’tis a consummation
Discreetly to be shunned. To smoke, to puff—
To puff, perhaps to doze—ay, there’s the rub;
For in that dozing state we thirsty grow,
And, having burned the tube up to a stump,
We must have drink, and that’s one cause
We modern youth are destined to short life;
For who can bear to feel his mouth parched up,
His throat like whalebone and his chest exhausted,
His head turned giddy, and his nerves unstrung,
When he himself might drench these ills away
With wine or brandy? Who could live in smoke,
And pine and sicken with a secret poison;
But that the dread of breaking o’er a rule
Prescribed by Fashion, whose controlling will
None disobey, puzzles ambitious youth,
And makes us rather bear the ills we feel
Than others that the doctor warns us of.
Thus custom does make spectres of us all,
And thus the native hue of our complexion
If sicklied o’er with a consumptive cast;
The appetite, a loss of greater moment,
Palled by the weed, and the digestive powers
Lose all their action.
John W. Farrell.
Rare Bits. November 18, 1882.
——:o:——
A Song, after Sheridan.
Here’s to the hookah with snake of five feet,
Or the “portable” fix’d to one’s “topper”;
Here’s to the meerschaum more naughty than neat,
And here’s to all pipes that are proper.
Fill them up tight,
Give ’em a light;
I’ll wager a smoke will set everything right.
Here’s to the Warden’s twelve inches of stalk,
Here’s to Jack Tar’s clay, with one, sir;
To the pipes now with mountings so rich that they “walk,”
And here’s to most pipes which have none, sir.
Fill them up tight, &c.
Here’s to the Milo just out of the shop,
With mouthpiece as dry as pale sherry;
Here’s to your veteran, wet as a mop,
Black as a sloe or a cherry.
Fill them up tight, &c.
Let them be clumsy or let them be slim,
Light or heavy, I care not a feather;
So, fill them with ’Baccy right up to the rim,
And let us all smoke them together.
Fill them up tight,
Give ’em a light;
I’ll wager a smoke will set everything right.
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. February, 1875.
——:o:——
Hail to the Plant.
(A Parody of Sir Walter Scott.)
Hail! to the Plant which we owe to brave Raleigh,
Long may it flourish on Cuba’s lone shore,
Bloom on the mountain, and spread in the valley,
Fertile, and fragrant, and fresh evermore!
Bright sunshine, nourish it,
Gentle deeds, cherish it,
Life giving breezes, around it still flow;
Moisture and warmth, give aid,
That it may never fade;
Tabak, St. Nicotine, ho, ieroe!
* * * * *
Smoke, brother, smoke of the pride of Virginia;
Snuff, brother, snuff, if you’d clear up your brain;
Chew, brother, chew, and I’ll bet you a guinea,
Once fairly started, you’ll do it again.
Oh, would our northern air
Nurture this plant so rare!
Never aught else in my garden I’d grow:
All my flowers pluck’d should be,
Fruit-trees give place to thee,
Tabak, St. Nicotine, ho, ieroe!
The Lay of the Last Smoker.
The weed was rank, the pipe was old,
Along the road the smoker rolled;
His scared and hesitating way
Showed that he owed and couldn’t pay.
The pipe, his one remaining joy,
Was scoff of every man and boy;
For last of all the smokers, he,
This old man was well known to be
For ’Bacca’s day was lately fled,
And all his brother smokers dead;
And he but stayed to smoke and swear,
And wonder where the others were.
No more amid the jest and song,
He puffed at his churchwarden long;
No longer in a smoking car
He blew a cloud from his cigar,
And stood his ground both stern and stout,
To smoke the anti-puffers out.
Old days were drowned in Time’s dark stream,
And “antis” reigned now all supreme;
The quivering noses of the time
Now called each harmless puff a crime.
A wandering smoker, scorned and sad,
He nearly drove the city mad;
And had to smoke—oh! wretched elf!
Some ’Bacca that he grew himself.
* * * * *
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. April, 1876.
——:o:——
The Last Cigar.
(After Thomas Moore.)
’Tis a last choice Havana
I hold here alone;
All its fragrant companions
In perfume have flown.
No more of its kindred
To gladden the eye,
So my empty cigar case
I close with a sigh.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine; but the stem
I’ll bite off and light thee
To waft thee to them
And gently I’ll scatter
The ashes you shed,
As your soul joins its mates in
A cloud overhead.
All pleasure is fleeting,
It blooms to decay
From the weeds glowing circle,
The ash drops away.
A last whiff is taken,
The butt-end is thrown,
And with empty cigar case
I sit all alone.
Anonymous.
’Tis the last weed of Hudson’s
Left lying alone;
All his dark brown Regalias
Are vanished and gone.
No cigar of its colour,
No “Lopez” is mine,
To delight with its perfume
And fragrance divine.
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one!
I’ll ring for a light;
Thy companions are ashes,
I’ll smoke thee to-night.
Thy halo and incense
Shall rise o’er my head,
As I sigh for the beauties
All scentless and dead.
And soon may I follow
Those lov’d ones’ decay;
Since from each tempting bundle
They’ve faded away.
When Regalias are smok’d out,
And “Lopez” are blown,
Oh! who would still linger,
Cigarless, alone?
From Hints to Freshmen, in the
University of Oxford.
A Last Cigar.
’Tis my last mild Havana
Pervading the room;
Her companions have taken
Their leaves in a fume.
No kindred to back her,
Nor plug, twist, nor snuff,
To return her aroma
Or give puff for puff.
Oh, fain would I follow
When the last whiff is sped,
And in life’s brightest garden
The weeds are all dead.
When troubles oppress us,
Or better-halves jar,
Oh, what were existence
Without a cigar?
——:o:——
The Butcher Boy.
The butcher boy down the road has gone,
With beefsteak he has lined him;
A pipe of clay he has put on,
And his basket’s slung behind him.
“Lend me that,” cried the baker’s boy,
“The pipe you now are biting,”
“Not I,” cried he, “my pipe I’ll guard!”
And so they fell to fighting.
The butcher fell, but the baker’s boy,
Could not bring his proud soul under;
The pipe he loved ne’er smoked again,
For he broke its stem asunder;
And cried, “No dough shall sully thee,
I’ll be thy undertaker;
Thy joys were made for the butcher boy—
Thou shalt ne’er be smoked by a baker!”
H. L.
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. July. 1873.
My Old Dhudeen.
(Air: Love’s Young Dream.)
Oh! the days are gone when lollipops
My heart could move;
When sugar-sticks and almond rock
Were my first love;
Inventions sweet
And succulent,
Made childhood all serene;
Now there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As my old Dhudeen;
Yes, there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As my old Dhudeen.
For the youth will tire at last of sweets
When “down” appears,
And he wears a collar in the streets
That hides his ears:
The vile “Pickwick”
May make him sick,
And turn his face quite green,
Yet there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As his old Dhudeen;
Oh! there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As his old Dhudeen.
Oh! the first sly smoke I’ll ne’er forget—
It made me queer;
And when I my stern parent met,
He pulled my ear;
But now I’m old,
And weak and cold,
And on my stick do lean,
There’s nothing half so sweet in life
As my old Dhudeen;
Oh! there’s nothing half so sweet in life
As my old Dhudeen.
H. L.
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. December, 1872.
——:o:——
I Remember.
(After Hood.)
I remember, I remember,
The pipe that first I drew;
With red waxed end and snowy bowl,
It perfect was and new.
It measured just four inches long,
’Twas made of porous clay;
I found when I began to smoke,
It took my breath away,
I remember, I remember,
In fear I struck a light;
And when I smoked a little time,
I felt my cheeks grow white.
My nervous system mutinied,
My diaphragm uprose,
And I was very—very ill
In a way you may suppose.
I remember, I remember,
The very rod he got,
When father who discovered me,
Made me exceeding hot.
He scattered all my feathers then,
While, face down I reclined;
I sat upon a cold hearthstone,
I was so warm behind.
I remember, I remember,
I viewed the rod with dread,
And silent, sad, and supperless,
I bundled off to bed.
It was a childish punishment,
And now ’tis little joy
To know that, for the self-same crime,
I wallop my own boy!
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. March, 1875.
——:o:——
The Old Black Clay.
I love it! I love it! though some may say
It’s wrong to be fond of an old black clay;
I haven’t exactly inlaid it with sighs—
The turn of my mind has been otherwise—
For I always feel excessively gay
When I’m gazing upon that old black clay.
When rude and frivolous folk are by,
I never produce it—I’ll tell you why—
They call it harsh, injurious names,
And vex my soul with mischievous games;
But when to a lonely place I repair,
I make quite sure there’s nobody there,
And adore in the most abandoned way
That stumpy loveable coal-black clay.
I’ll never forget the dreadful day
When they “played it low” on that harmless clay—
The ruthless hand of a mother dear
Hid it away in a dust-hole drear;
But, ah! no words can properly tell
My joy when I found it again by the smell;
And I took to my heart (as one may say),
Once more that redolent, long lost clay.
I love it! I love it! as I have said,
I smoke it abroad, and I smoke it abed;
And if the prophecy turn out right
That I’m burned to a cinder some fine night,
I’ll simply deem it a glorious way
Of ending my life with my faithful clay.
The Manchester City Jackdaw. April 21, 1876.
——:o:——
Smoke not!
Smoke not, smoke not your weeds nor pipes of clay!
Cigars that are made from leaves of cauliflowers;—
Things that are doomed no duty e’er to pay;—
Grown, made, and smokèd in a few short hours.
Smoke not, smoke not.
Smoke not, smoke not! the weed you smoke may change
The healthfulness of your stomachic tone;
Things to the eye grow queer and passing strange;
All thought seems undefined—save one, to be alone.
Smoke not, smoke not.
Smoke not! the tradesman whose weed you smoke may die!
May perish from the cabbage-bearing earth;—
The sordid dun into your chamber hie—
Sent by the trustees in their tinless dearth.
Smoke not, smoke not.
Smoke not, smoke not! O, warning vainly said!
Cane and cap-paper since we first did try,
Smoke flings a halo round the smoker’s head;
And all in vain do anxious mothers cry,
Smoke not, smoke not!
From Hints to Freshmen in the University of Oxford, published by J. Vincent, Oxford, and attributed to the Rev. Canon Hole.
——:o:——
The Pipes of England.
The stately pipes of England,
How beautiful they be,
With amber tips and meerschaum bowls—
Such pipes are not for me!
With scented Latakie they burn,
And golden crowns they wear;
And the smoke steals from the scented urn—
Like summer’s perfumed air.
The merry pipes of England,
Amid the joke and jest,
With gladsome glasses of hot grog,
Are found then at their best,
The smoker’s eye is seen to wink,
As many a tale is told;
Or lips ope cheerfully to drink
The glorious ale of old.
The cottage pipes of England—
By thousands made of clay—
All snowy in their wooden box,
How beautiful are they!
From ruddy lips they outward poke,
As white as wool or lard;
And the lowly do a cheerful smoke,
When the times are not too hard.
The free, fair pipes of England
Live long in hall and hut;
And sweet for ever be their lips,
And scented be their bowls;
And may no humbug e’er eclipse
The solace of our souls.
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. April 1873.
——:o:——
The Genius of Smoking.
[We have been favored with the following defence of smoking, by an intimate literary friend of Lord Byron, who assures us it is selected from several unpublished juvenile trifles written at various times in his album by the noble bard.]
I had a dream—it was not all a dream;
Methought I sat beneath the silver beam
Of the sweet moon, and you were with me there,
And everything around was free and fair;
And from our mouths upcurled the fragrant smoke,
Whose light blue wreaths can all our pleasures yoke,
In sweetest union to young Fancy’s car,
And waft the soul out thro’ a good cigar.
There as we sat and puffed the hours away,
And talked and laughed about life’s little day,
And built our golden castles in the air,
And sighed to think what transient things they were,
As the light smoke around our heads was thrown,
Amidst its folds a little figure shone,
An elfin sprite, who held within her hand
A small cigar her sceptre of command.
Her hair above her brow was twisted tight off,
Like a cigar’s end, which you must bite off;
Her eyes were red and twinkling like the light
Of Eastern Hookah, or Meerschaum, by night;
A green tobacco leaf her shoulders graced,
And dried tobacco hung about her waist;
Her voice breathed softly, like the easy puffing
Of an old smoker, after he’s been stuffing.
Thus as she rolled aside the wanton smoke,
To us, her awe-struck votaries she spoke,—
“Hail faithful slaves! my choicest joys descend
On him who joins the smoker to the friend,
Yours is a pleasure that shall never vanish
Provided that you smoke the best of Spanish;
Puff forth your clouds”—(with that we puff’d amain)
“Sweet is their fragrance”—(then we puff’d again)
“How have I hung, with most intense delight,
Over your heads when you have smoked at night,
And gratefully imparted all my powers
To bless and consecrate those happy hours;
Smoke on,” she said. I started and awoke,
And with my dream she vanished into smoke.
Anonymous.
——:o:——
An American Parody of Wordsworth’s “Sonnet on the Sonnet.”
Scorn not the meerschaum. Housewives, you have croaked
In ignorance of its charms. Through this small reed
Did Milton, now and then, consume the weed;
The poet Tennyson hath oft evoked
The Muse with glowing pipe, and Thackeray joked
And wrote and sang in nicotinian mood;
Hawthorne with this hath cheered his solitude;
A thousand times this pipe hath Lowell smoked;
Full oft hath Aldrich, Stoddard, Taylor, Cranch,
And many more whose verses float about,
Puffed the Virginian or Havanna leaf;
And when the poet’s or the artist’s branch,
Drops no sustaining fruit, how sweet to pout
Consolatory whiffs—alas, too brief!
——:o:——
My Hookah.
What is it, that affords such joys
On Indian shores, and never cloys,
But makes that pretty, bubbling noise?
My Hookah.
What is it, that a party if in
At breakfast, dinner, or at Tiffin,
Surprises and delights the Griffin?
My Hookah.
What is it to Cadets gives pleasure?
What is it occupies their leisure?
What do they deem the greatest treasure?
My Hookah.
Say—what makes Decency wear sable?
What makes each would-be nabob able
To cock his legs upon the table?
My Hookah.
What is it (trust me, I’m not joking,
Tis truth—altho’, I own, provoking)
That sets e’en Indian belles a smoking?
My Hookah.
What is it—whensoe’er we search
In ev’ry place;—except the Church,
That leaves sweet converse in the lurch?
My Hookah.
But hold my Muse—for shame for shame—
One question ere you smoking blame—
What is it gives your book a name?
My Hookah.
My fault I own—my censure ends;
Nay more—I’ll try to make amends,
Who is the safest of all friends?
My Hookah.
Say who? or what retains the power,
When fickle Fortune ’gins to lour,
To solace many a lonely hour?
My Hookah.
When death-like dews and fogs prevailing
In Pinnace or in Budg’-row sailing,
What is it that prevents our ailing?
My Hookah.
When we’re our skins with claret soaking,
And heedless wits their friends are joking,
Which friend will stand the greatest smoking?
My Hookah.
By what—(nay, answer at your ease,
While pocketing our six rupees)—
By what d’ye mean the town to please?
My Hookah.
From My Hookah; or, The Stranger in Calcutta. Being a collection of Poems by an Officer. Calcutta: Greenway and Co., 1812.
A Pinch of Snuff.
With mind or body sore distrest,
Or with repeated cares opprest,
What sets the aching heart at rest?
A pinch of snuff!
Or should some sharp and gnawing pain
Creep round the noddle of the brain,
What puts all things to rights again?
A pinch of snuff!
When speech and tongue together fail,
What helps old ladies in their tale,
And adds fresh canvass to their sail?
A pinch of snuff!
Or when some drowsy parson prays,
Or still more drowsy people gaze,
What opes their eyelids with amaze?
A pinch of snuff!
A comfort which they can’t forsake,
What is it some would rather take,
Than good roast beef, or rich plum cake?
A pinch of snuff!
What warms without a conflagration,
Excites without intoxication,
And rouses without irritation?
A pinch of snuff!
Then let us sing in praise of snuff!
And call it not such “horrid stuff,”
At which some frown, and others puff,
And seem to flinch
But when a friend presents a box,
Avoid the scruples and the shocks
Of him who laughs and her who mocks,
And take a pinch!
From The Sportsman. August, 1835.
Stanzas to a Lady
In defence of Smoking.
What taught me first sweet peace to blend
With hopes and fears that knew no end,
My dearest, truest, fondest friend?
My pipe, love!
What cheer’d me in my boyhood’s hour,
When first I felt Love’s witching power,
To bear deceit,—false woman’s dow’r
My pipe, love!
What still upheld me since the guile,
Attendant on false friendship’s smile,
And I in hope, deceiv’d the while?
My pipe, love!
What cheer’d me when misfortunes came,
And all had flown me? Still the same
My only true and constant flame,
My pipe, love!
What sooth’d me in a foreign land,
And charm’d me with its influence bland,
Still whisp’ring comfort, hand in hand?
My pipe, love!
What charm’d me in the thoughts of past
When mem’ry’s gleam my eyes o’ercast,
And burns to serve me to the last?
My pipe, love!
Nicotiana, by H. J. Meller. London. E. Wilson, 1832.
To my Cigar.
When cares oppress the drooping mind,
And fickle friends are most unkind,
Who constant still remains behind?
My true cigar!
Oh! where’s the friend who’d cheerfully,
To soothe one pensive hour for me,
Resign his latest breath like thee—
My kind cigar?
Thy spirit’s gone, poor fragile thing!
But still thine ashes, mouldering,
To me a valued lesson bring,—
My pale cigar!
Like man’s, how soon thy vital spark,
Expiring, leaves no other mark,
But mouldering ashes, drear and dark,
My dead cigar.
T. G. J.
Bristol. 1844.
Tobacco.
Whene’r I’m out of sorts or sad,
Oppress’d with care, and well-nigh mad,
What comforts me, and makes me glad?
Tobacco!
What builds such castles in the air,
And paints my prospects bright and fair,
And makes me negligent of care?
Tobacco!
How is it that I’m so resign’d,
When’er my wife must speak her mind,
And ne’er retaliate in kind?
Tobacco!
What makes my holidays so sweet,
And ev’ry “outing” such a treat
That I would fain their joys repeat?
Tobacco!
Whene’er my brain is dull and dark,
And utterly beside the mark,
What wakes the latent, slumb’ring spark?
Tobacco!
What changes all my scowls to smiles,
And many a tedious hour beguiles,
And ne’er by any chance me riles,
Tobacco.
Enlarger of our mortal ken,
Familiar of the artist’s den,
Beloved by literary men—
Tobacco!
Far kinder than the kindest friend,
O, teach us how your powers blend!
And from your heavenly throne descend,
Tobacco!
E. H. S.
From Cope’s Cope’s Tobacco PlantTobacco Plant. April, 1873.
The Weed.
When roses droop beside the wall,
When lily petals fade and fall,
What swiftly rises, covering all?
The Weed.
When starts the widow on the chase,
To fill “the late lamented’s” place,
What decorates her pretty face?
The Weed.
When coffee’s served and wine runs low,
When conversation waxes slow,
What brings the after-dinner glow?
The Weed.
A Smoke.
What comforts me when I am sad,
Or when I’ve got the toothache bad,
Or when the money market’s mad?
A smoke.
What soothes me if I dine not well,
When lies about me people tell,
Or friendship proves a hollow sell?
A smoke.
What quiets indigestion’s pangs,
And takes the edge off hatred’s fangs,
And salves misfortune’s cruel bangs?
A smoke.
——:o:——
Hymn to Saint Nicotine.
(Imitation of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.)
Strange! that this gently breathèd cloud
So far, far sweeter unto me,
Than all that this green earth enshroud,
Or float above the sea.
My meerschaum, when thy mouth I greet,
No lady’s lips seem half so sweet.
I look upon the fair blue skies,
And naught but empty air I see;
But when thy circling cloudlets rise,
It seemeth unto me
Ten thousand angels spread their wings,
Within those little azure rings.
Tobacco hath the choicest leaf
That ever western breeze hath fanned;
Its healing odour gives relief
To men of ev’ry land.
This precious herb to me doth yield
More joy than all the broider’d field.
O, comrade! there be many things
That seem right fair in truth or joke;
But sure from none among them springs
A richer charm than smoke.
Let us not puff our pipes alone,
But join two altars both in one.
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. December, 1871.
——:o:——
Parody of Dr. Watts, by an Anti-Smoker.
How doth the nasty, dirty man,
Go smoking every hour;
And spend his money wastefully
On Old Nick’s favourite flower.
How wistfully he seeks his pipe,
How glad he doth it light;
And smokes the foul thing all the day,
And feels quite ill at night.
In shag, bird’s eye, or honey-dew,
His mind is ever fast;
And Satan knows to him he’s due,
For he’ll get him at last.
Anonymous.
The Last Pipe.
T’was the voice of the doctor, I heard him declare,
“You’ve been smoking too much, of tobacco beware!
To be candid and plain you’ll find it no joke,
For you’ll become ashes yourself if you smoke.”
So I’ve filled my last pipe as I sit by the fire,
And gaze at the cloud rising higher and higher,
And languidly watching each up-curling ring,
A mournful adieu to tobacco I sing.
Farewell, good cigars, I will e’en call you dear,
Yet your price were no object so you were still here.
Good bye! Latakia, Mild Turkey, good by!
Virginia, Cavendish, Bristol Bird’s-eye,
And my pipe! My sweet pipe, with thy cool amber tip!
No more shall that amber caress my fond lip.
Oh! friend of my youth! must thou really go—
My partner in joy, and my solace in woe?
’Tis too true; nought avail me these heart-broken sighs!
And, alas! thou art out. There are tears in my eyes,
As I lay thee down gently. I will not complain,
But I feel I shall never be happy again.
Fun, 1870.
——:o:——
The Pipe.
A Parody of Barry Cornwall’s “The Sea, the Sea!”
The pipe, the pipe, the German pipe!
The short, the long, the meerschaum ripe!
Its odorous puffs without a sound,
They float my head’s wide regions round;
They rise in clouds and mock the skies,
While Baccy snugly eradled lies.
My hookah wide! my hookah deep!
I’ve that which I would ever keep;
With the smoke above, and smoke below,
And smoke wheresoe’er I go.
If a storm (like a Chinese gong) should ring
What matters that? I’ll smoke and sing.
What matters, &c.
I love—oh! how I love to smoke,
And drink full bumpers of th’ foaming soak!
And when its waves have drowned my soul,
I’ll whistle aloud such a “Tol-de-rol!”
Don’t ask me where the world is going,
Nor why the sou’-west blast is blowing.
I never breathed the dull tame air,
But I relish my great pipe mair and mair,
And back again flew for a soothing puff,
Like a bird—I’m sure that’s quick enough.
My mother it is, and I’ll prove it to ye,
(Much more of a mother than the open sea!)
For smoking, I’m at it ever and ever!
I hope your comment on this line is “clever!”
For fear of growing at all lackadaisical
I hasten to lay down my pen parody-sical;
In truth these stanzas concluding with somewhat
’Bout “birth” and “death,” which things I can’t come
I’ve only one word, and that’s to crave pardon,
These sweet pretty verses that I’ve been so hard on.
From The Individual. Cambridge, January 31, 1837.
——:o:——
A Dream (Anti-cipated).
(After Kingsley.)
Three Antis[24] went groaning out into the east—
Out into the east, as the sun arose;
Each thought on the newspaper he loved the least;
The Tobacco Plant followed, and chaff’d at their woes.
But antis will croak, and smokers will smoke,
Tho’ chaff it be sudden, and endless the joke
That the antis afford with their moaning.
The Plant having stopped in a garden bower,
Lit up his sweet pipe, as the sun arose;
And he heard those three antis bawl out by the hour
The weakest of humbug, in seedy old clothes.
But antis will croak, and the Plant have his joke,
And chaff, if ignited, must all end in smoke,
And the antis must soon end their moaning.
Three antis lay drunk on the shining sands,
In the morning gleam, as the sun arose;
And smokers are laughing and rubbing their hands,
To know they’re already relieved of their foes.
For Observers will talk, and the Plant doesn’t sleep;
Though tough be the job, ’tis amusing to keep
All the anti-Tobaccoites moaning.
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. January, 1875.
Thou who, when fears attack,
Bidst them avaunt, and Black
Care, at the horseman’s back
Perching, unseatest;
Sweet when the morn is grey;
Sweet, when they’ve clear’d away
Lunch; and at close of day
Possibly sweetest:
I have a liking old
For thee, though manifold
Stories, I know, are told.
Not to thy credit
How one (or two at most)
Drops make a cat a ghost—
Useless, except to roast—
Doctors have said it:
How they who use fusees
All grow by slow degrees
Brainless as chimpanzees,
Meagre as lizards;
Go mad, and beat their wives;
Plunge (after shocking lives)
Razors and carving knives
Into their gizzards.
Confound such knavish tricks!
Yet know I five or six
Smokers who freely mix
Still with their neighbours;
Jones—(who, I’m glad to say,
Asked leave of Mrs. J—)
Daily absorbs a clay
After his labours.
Cats may have had their goose
Cooked by tobacco-juice;
Still why deny its use
Thoughtfully taken?
We’re not as tabbies are:
Smith, take a fresh cigar!
Jones, the tobacco-jar!
Here’s to thee, Bacon!
C. S. Calverley.
Detained.
Hand me another spill—
Phœbe, my glass refill,
As I’ve some time to kill.
What do you mention?
Boat, gun, and tackle nigh,
Horse and trap ready?—I
Think I can manage my
Task of detention.
Rowing? I’ve had a bout!
Raining? Then can’t go out!
Capital stream for trout?
Not very handy!
No, I’ll just pen a lay;
Clear all these things away;
Landlord! another clay
Soda and brandy
Anti-Tobaccoite!
I have no wish to fight;
But if you douse my light,
Mind, we shall wrangle.
Why should you interfere,
With your new-fangled gear,
And try my course to steer
At such an angle?
No! I must have my light;
Whether I read or write,
Smoking, by day or night,
Aids the reflection.
Some may prefer Bohea;
Excellent though it be,
I think Tobacco the
Pink of Perfection!
Shag’s my divinity,
Pure as virginity;
In its vicinity
Come not, you croakers!
What, though the Antis choke?
Still I must have my smoke;
Pshaw! let the beggars croak!
Here’s to the smokers!
E. H. S.
——:o:——
Beware!
I know a meerschaum fair to see,
Take care!
It whispers “Smoke and colour me,”
Beware! beware!
Smoke it not,
’Tis fooling thee!
It cost two guineas, golden brown,
Take care!
You’d better smash it; drop it down;
Beware! beware!
Smoke it not;
’Tis fooling thee.
A mouthpiece of a golden hue,
Take care!
’Twill very likely make you—vomit,
Beware! beware!
Smoke it not!
’Tis fooling thee.
It hath a bowl as white as snow,
Take care!
Smoke it black, to Old Nick you’ll go;
Beware! beware!
Smoke it not;
’Tis fooling thee.
P. C.
Tobacco Smoke!
The clouds of smoke were rising fast,
As through a college room there passed
A youth, who bore, ’spite sage advice,
A “baccy”-pouch, with strange device,
“Tobacco smoke!”
His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Glared on a pipe, laid in its sheath,
And in his ears there ever rung
The accents of the donor’s tongue,
Tobacco smoke!
In ground-floor rooms he saw the light,
Of pipes and weeds glow strong and bright;
And, heedless of the passing don,
From out his lips escaped a groan,
Tobacco smoke!
“Try not the shag,” the old man said,
“It is o’er strong for thy young head,
Dire its effects to those untried;”
Heedless he was, and but replied,
Tobacco smoke!
“Oh, stay,” the maiden said, “and test
Our Latakia—’tis the best!”
He grasped his packet of birds’-eye,
And only muttered with a sigh,
Tobacco smoke!
“Beware; don’t set your room alight—
The college might object—good night!”
Such were the words the scholar spoke,
And scarcely heard through closing oak,
Tobacco smoke!
At midnight hour, as bedroom-ward
Two “undergrads” from drinking hard,
Steered up the gas-less break-neck stair,
A voice cried from the “right two-pair,”
Tobacco smoke!
The Freshman by his scout was found,
Lying all prone upon the ground,
And still his hand grasped like a vice
The “baccy”-pouch with strange device,
Tobacco smoke!
There, in the morning cold and gray,
Moaning, and all unkempt, he lay,
And then the scout, unmoved, serene—
Said—“Oh! ’tis easy to be seen,
Tobacco smoke!”
R. C.
From College Rhymes. Part XVI., 1864.
The Song of Firewater, a parody of Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha,” appeared in Cope’s Tobacco Plant for November, 1871. The poem relates to snuff, but as it extends to over 200 lines it cannot be inserted here. It commences thus:—
Should you ask me whence this story?
Whence this legend and tradition?
I should answer, I should tell you,
From the lips of Blow-me-tite-o;
Blow-me-tite-o, sweetest singer,
Singer of the mournful ditties.
* * * * *
The Song of Nicotine.
Should you ask me why this meerschaum,
Why these clay-pipes and churchwardens,
With the odours of tobacco,
With the oil and fume of “mixture,”
With the curling smoke of “bird’s eye,”
With the gurgling of rank juices,
With renewed expectorations
As of sickness on the fore-deck?
I should answer, I should tell you,
From the cabbage, and the dust-heaps,
From the old leeks of the Welshland,
From the soil of kitchen gardens,
From the mud of London sewers,
From the garden-plots and churchyards,
Where the linnet and cock-sparrow
Feed upon the weeds and groundsel,
I receive them as I buy them
From the boxes of Havana,
The concoctor, the weird wizard.
Should you ask how this Havana
Made cigars so strong and soothing,
Made the “bird’s eye,” and “York-river,”
I should answer, I should tell you,
In the purlieus of the cities,
In the cellars of the warehouse,
In the dampness of the dungeon,
Lie the rotten weeds that serve him;
In the gutters and the sewers,
In the melancholy alleys,
Half-clad Arab boys collect them,
Crossing-sweepers bring them to him,
Costermongers keep them for him,
And he turns them by his magic
Into “cavendish” and “bird’s-eye,”
For those clay-pipes and churchwardens,
For this meerschaum, or he folds them,
And “cigars” he duly labels
On the box in which he sells them.
From Figaro. October 7, 1874.
Lines to the “Anti-Tobacco Journal.”
Tell me not in penny numbers
Smoking’s but a loathsome dream;
Worse than onions and cucumbers,
Though they be chawed up like steam!
Smoke is sweetness, done in earnest,
Power possessing to console,
If ’tis healthy weed thou burnest
In the clay or meerschaum bowl.
Not to aid expectoration
Doth the smoker burn the weed,
But to woo sweet meditation,
And also digest his “feed.”
“Shag” is strong, “Returns” is milder,
“Cavendish” but suits the brave;
Though our pulses beat the wilder,
Still for ’bacca do we crave.
In this world so full of brawling,
If in years your manhood’s ripe,
Heed ye not the antis’ calling—
Be a man and smoke a pipe.
Pipes of great men all remind us
(Tho’ of clay the bowl and stem),
Wheresoever fate may find us,
We can colour pipes like them.
Dhudeens, that perhaps another
On the wheel of fortune broke,
Some forlorn and bankrupt brother,
Seeing, may take heart, and smoke.
Let us, then, take weeds and matches,
And a pipe—that is enough;
Tho’ it only be by snatches,
Spared from toil, we still will puff!
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. March, 1876.
Meerschaum.
Come to me, O! my meerschaum,
For the vile street organs play;
And the torture they’re inflicting
Will vanish quite away.
I open my study window
And into the twilight peer,
And my anxious eyes are watching
For the man with my evening beer.
In one hand is the shining pewter,
All amber the ale doth glow;
In t’other are long “churchwardens,”
As spotless and pure as snow.
Ah! what would the world be to us
Tobaccoless?—Fearful bore!
We should dread the day after to-morrow
Worse than the day before.
As the elephant’s trunk to the creature,
Is the pipe to the man, I trow;
Useful and meditative
As the cud to the peaceful cow.
So to the world is smoking;
Through that we feel, with bliss,
That, whatever worlds come after,
A jolly old world is this.
Come to me, O! my meerschaum,
And whisper to me here,
If you like me better with coffee
Than grog, or the bitter beer.
Oh! what are our biggest winnings
If peaceful content we miss?
Though fortune may give us an innings,
She seldoms conveys us bliss.
You’re better than all the fortunes
That ever were made or broke;
For a penny will always fill you,
And buy me content with a smoke.
Wrongfellow.
The Pipe and the Quid.
An imitation of Longfellow’s
“The Arrow and the Song.”
I flung a pipe into the air,
And it fell down, I knew not where;
For many folks were near to me,
And so I did not stay to see.
I spun a quid up in the air,
And that fell down, I knew not where;
For ’twould require the strongest sight
To follow a quid in its erring flight.
Shortly I found my pipe again,
On the head of my uncle broke in twain;
And the quid I had not seen descend,
I found in the eye of my dearest friend.
Wrongfellow.
Cope’s Tobacco Plant. June, 1876.
——:o:——
Another Match.
(After A. C. Swinburne.)
If love were dhudeen olden,
And I were like the weed,
Oh! we would live together,
And love the jolly weather,
And bask in sunshine golden,
Rare pals of choicest breed;
If love were dhudeen olden,
And I were like the weed.
If I were what cigars are,
And love were like the case,
In double rows or single,
Our varied scents we’d mingle,
Both brown as Persian shahs are—
(You recollect his face);
If I were what cigars are,
And love were like the case.
If you were snuff, my darling,
And I, your love, the box,
We’d live and sneeze together,
Shut out from all the weather,
And anti-snuffers snarling,
In neckties orthodox;
If you were snuff, my darling,
And I, your love, the box.
If you were oil essential,
And I were nicotine,
We’d hatch up wicked treason,
And spoil each smoker’s reason,
Till he grew penitential,
And turned a bilious green;
If you were oil essential,
And I were nicotine.
If you were shag of dark hue,
And I were mild bird’s eye,
We’d scent the passing hours,
And fumigate the flowers;
And in the midnight, hark you,
The Norfold Howards should die
If you were Shag of dark hue,
And I were mild Bird’s-eye.
If you were the aroma,
And I were simply smoke,
We’d skyward fly together,
As light as any feather;
And flying high as Homer,
His grey old ghost we’d choke;
If you were the aroma,
And I were simply smoke.
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. August, 1876.
Another Ballad of More Burdens.
(After Swinburne.)
The burden of false meerschaums: Fair to sight
Built up by scamps in a most fraudful way,
With glass for amber, can’t be seen at night,
But looketh what it is in truthful day.
And bowls that turn (with dirt) to dirty grey,
And narrow bores that all our jaws do tire,
And fill our souls with horrible dismay.
This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.
The burden of bad ’Bacca: This is worse.
A burden with full fruit of mild swearing:
We drop the pipe to drop a gentle curse,
Six score between the morn and evening.
The quivering of the glands, the shuddering,
The wheezy grunts with which we do respire,
Makes “weed” seem horrid and a treacherous thing.
This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.
The burden of burnt breeches: Nay, sit down;
Cover thyself and sleep; for verily
The market women all about the town
Behind thy back shall laugh and hoot at thee.
Like the red beet-root all thy face shall be;
That box of lights set thy coat tails on fire,
And burnt thee bare. Tarry till daylight flee.
This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.
The burden of the missus: oh! her tongue
Shall let thee rest not, e’en upon thy bed;
For that her curtains at the window hung,
Of stale smoke smelling, fill her soul with dread.
With mutton cold thou shalt be often fed,
And drink cold grog, against thy warm desire,
And wear a broomstick round thy shrinking head.
This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.
The burden of mean cadgers; thou shalt flee
All ways at once, but still they will be seen;
And at the thing thou seest thy face shalt be
Transmogrified, and not at all serene.
And thou shalt say of ’Bacca, “It hath been
Consumed by me;” and they shall whisper “Liar;”
And go their ways with chagrin turning green.
This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.
The burden of sad Antis: Every day
They will prognosticate thy doom, and tell
Where thou art going to at last, and say
The place is warm and undesirable.
And swear that for a mile thy clothes do smell;
And preach to thee till thy whole soul doth tire;
Then, going, groan—just for a parting knell.
This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.
The burden of the taxes: Spoiled is Spring,
With fragrant ’Bacca ’neath the growing trees,
To think of what we pay for this one thing,
The dearest physic for our miseries.
For, at each puff, the weeping smoker sees
His wreath fly up, away, and higher, higher,
Till thoughts of bankruptcy do make him freeze.
This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.
The burden of the fusees: Some won’t light,
And some will spit out fire upon the hands;
The wretch who sells them slinketh in the night,
And counts his fortune in far, foreign lands
Where police are not, and where are no cab-stands,
While we still on his head heap curses dire
And blame the makers of the various brands.
This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.
The burden of fierce headaches: When we must
Forsake the weed, altho’ ’tis our delight,
When all our eyes seem red with blinding dust,
And on our head a weight hangs day and night,
And our red faces, lo! are bloodless white;
When nothing in the world we do admire,
And folks do ask us when we last were tight.
This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.
L’Envoy.
Smokers, and ye whom ’Bacca tickleth,
Heed what is here before the weed you fire;
You cannot smoke for ever. Where’s your breath?
This is a cause of every smoker’s ire.
Sinburn.
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. September 1876.
——:o:——
THE CIGAR-SMOKERS.
“‘Courage!’ he said, and pointed towards the land;
‘This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.’
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.”
The Lotos Eaters—Alfred Tennyson.
I.
“Land ho!” he cried “I see it now,” says he,
“This jolly breeze will fetch us soon to land.”
Towards night they got there, time for early tea,
A land where tea seemed ever smoking hot to stand.
Thick clouds of smoke, by sleepy breezes fanned,
Twined, serpent like, o’er all, in curves and twists;
The setting sun glared red and angry, close at hand,
And from his steaming brow fell off the mists,
As falls the sweat from boxers, boxing with their fists.
II.
A land of smokers! smoking fast were some,
Quick, restless puffers wand’ring to and fro;
And some, with drowsy eyes and senses dumb,
Rolled heavy smoke-clouds very long and slow.
The strangers saw the smokers come and go
Along the shore, in groups of eight and sometimes ten,
From somewhere up above to somewhere down below;
Strange, dingy faces, strongly-perfumed men,
Smelling as husbands when their wives ask, where they’ve been.
III.
The sun went out, the moon began to rise,
But could not shine; smoke rests on everything
And closes o’er the sea; the hum of flies
Is heard afar, and vast musquitoes sing,
Who buzz and nearer buzz, then ’light and sting;
A place where all things always sleepy feel!
And round about and in and out, on odorous wing,
With faces like an owl, and tail unlike an eel,
The red-eyed ghosts of old Tobacco-smokers steal.
IV.
Great leaves of that disgusting weed they brought,
And some chopped fine to chew, and also snuff,
Whereof they gave to each, but who once caught
The taste, from him the strangely-smelling stuff
Took all good sense, nor said he ever, “hold! enough;”
The ocean’s voice he heard as tho’ it spake
To some one else; his own grew thick and gruff,
And half asleep and scarcely half awake,
An everlasting puffing, puffing he did make.
V.
They sat them down upon the dingy shore,
Betwixt the moonlight and the moonlight’s ray,
And closed their eyes with heavy eyelids o’er,
And saw the “old folks’” faces far “at home” away;
But dark and dismal seemed the tossing bay,
Dismal the hammock’s swing, the boatswain’s cry.
Then one man said, “We won’t go home, to-day!”
And all at once chimed in, “Agreed say I;
Let’s all together not go home till by-and-by!”
Choric Song.
I.
There’s sweet tobacco here, of every kind,
Sweeter than honey in the hollow tree,
Or sugar in the sugar-cane, you’ll find,
Or dew-drop in the hollyhock can be;
Cigars whose smoke floats lightly round the eye,
As round the buttercup the butterfly;
Cigars that one would die to smoke, then smoke to die!
Here lie long-nines beside,
And plugs no teeth have ever tried,
And all the earth is snuff too, far and wide,
And in the craggy rocks the cigarettos hide!
II.
Why leave dry land to sail on boiling water?
Why make our short lives, any longer, shorter
By still debating, while the minutes flee?
All folks smoke here; why only smoke not we?—
We who have smoked vile smoke as e’er was known,
And chewed vile chews on land and sea,
Still from a bad one to a worse one thrown!
Nor ever end our woes,
By snuffing up the nose,
Nor yield our senses to the potent spell;
Nor hearken to the song that o’er us goes;
“No joy that tongue can tell
Is like what enters thro’ the avenue of smell!”
III.
Hateful is the pea-green sky,
Hanging o’er the pea-green sea—
Life ends in smoke, oh! why
Should life all labor be?
Let us alone. We do not want to go!
Since life’s a vapor, smoke it all away!
Let us alone. We have no strength to row,
We won’t attempt it, anyhow, to-day.
Let us alone. What fun can sailors find
In climbing up a wave, and down behind?
All folks have rest excepting only tars,
Their work is always of the endless kind;—
Give us a smoke or sleep, sound sleep or good cigars!
IV.
How sweet it were, seeing the rising fog,
With half-cigar and half a smile,
Dozing in a half-and-half the while,
To dream and dream like yonder aged frog,
Which only leaves his hole, the smoky log,
To muse amid abandoned stumps near by;
Chewing Tobacco, here to lie
And see the waves rush up, our joy to share,
Clutching with eager arms the vacant air,
To grasp the sweets the scented breezes bear;
To give our minds up to it wholly,
To chase away blue-thoughted melancholy,
To put rich flavorous, antique fine-cut tobacco,
Into these pipes by steady use grown blacker;
Pressed down with thumb to make it stay;
Two pinches of black dust shut in a bowl of clay.
V.
Our wives and children are at home, ’tis true;
But we can do without them, I and you;
All things have undergone a change back there;
Our babes climb other knees; our shirts new husbands wear!
They would not know us now, so dirty grown:
So strong we smell they’d slam the angry door,
Thinking our souls upon the wings of smoke had flown,
Been puffed away upon this dingy shore,
Leaving behind the wasted stumps alone,
Fit on the ash-pile only to be thrown.
Let what is, be as ’tis, of course;
A wife is hard to reconcile;
We might be driven out by force;
’Tis hard to fix things, when they’ve run awhile;
’Twould be at best our labor for our pains;
He gains but little who a woman gains:
Sad work, for hearts worn out with household noise,
And arms grown lame long since with nursing baby-boys!
VI.
Tobacco-posies blossom high and low;
Tobacco-posies bloom where’er you go;
All day the breezes from the ocean dipping,
O’er hill and vale, on tireless tiptoe tripping,
Up and down the sandy beach the dust of the Tobacco blow.
We have done enough of rolling and of pitching, O!
Up the foremast, up the hindmast, in the musty hold below,
While the bellowing boatswain shouted his eternal “Yo heave ho!”
Let us take an oath and keep it, with an open eye,
In the land of the Tobacco still to live and lie,
On the bank, like pigs together, you and also I;
For they lie beside each other, and the slops are hurled
All around them in the gutter, while their tails are tightly curled
All around them—glad and happy, in a glad and happy world;
There they smile in comfort, dreaming over future joys,
Dreading neither thirst nor hunger, sun nor storm, nor roaring noise,
Swearing men, nor scolding women, barking dogs, nor tyrant boys.
But they smile, they smell a prospect of a dinner by-and-bye,
Steaming up, a preparation making in the kitchens nigh,
And their tail is full of meaning when it’s curled so high!
But the luckless race of human labor for their life,
Plant and dig and raise potatoes, mostly keep a wife;
Wife who scolds them late and early, more than one would think,
’Till they lose their senses nearly—some, ’tis whispered, take to drink—
Swigging endless potions—others in Tobacco islands dwell,
Resting weary legs, at last, on beds of assfoodel.
Surely, surely, smoking is more nice than not-the chew,
Than life upon the great big ocean, with so much work to do;
Oh! bless you, brothers, yes of course, we’ll stay here, I and you!
This is taken from a small volume of American parodies, entitled “The Song of Milkan Watha, and other poems,” by Marc Antony Henderson, D.C.L. Cincinnati: Tickell and Grinne. 1856.
Nicotina.
After Tennyson’s “Oriana.”
At a bal masqué in San Francisco a young lady appeared attired to represent Nicotine. Her dress was made of Tobacco leaves, her necklace was formed of cigars, and she carried a fan and a parasol constructed of the weed.
My liver’s out of order, oh!
Nicotina!
A cloudy gloom doth o’er me flow,
Nicotina!
When blossoms fall as white as snow,
I think of her of “Francisco,”
Nicotina!
I wriggle in my bitter woe,
Nicotina!
When the dark to light was growing,
Nicotina!
And the cock left off a crowing,
Nicotina!
Thin ones “oh”-ing, fat ones blowing,
All unto the ball were going,
Nicotina!
I, too, went, to my o’erthrowing!
Nicotina!
In the ball-room fill’d with light,
Nicotina!
(Some were downstairs getting tight,
Nicotina!)
While thine eyes entranced my sight,
Underneath the gay gaslight,
Nicotina!
I engaged you; you said “Right!”
Nicotina!
We danced in the whirling ball
Nicotina!
She loved my mask ’mong them all,
Nicotina!
She saw me slip, she heard me fall,
When out stepp’d a rival tall,
Nicotina!
He kicked me hard, and made me bawl,
Nicotina!
The villain dragg’d thee on one side,
Nicotina!
The bitter beast, he went aside,
Nicotina!
The darn’d brute, he glanced aside,
And took thee oft, my love, my bride,
Nicotina!
Thy dress, thy fan, and thee beside,
Nicotina!
Oh! narrow, narrow was the place,
Nicotina!
I call’d out as a donkey brays,
Nicotina!
Oh! dreadful looks were dealt apace,
There was no room for dancing ways,
Nicotina!
And flat I went upon my face!
Nicotina!
They tried to smash me where I lay,
Nicotina!
I couldn’t rise and get away,
Nicotina!
No more I thought to see the day,
They tried to smash me where I lay,
Nicotina!
They nearly turn’d my dust to clay,
Nicotina!
Oh! breaking ribs, that would not break,
Nicotina!
Oh! damaged nose, so snub and meek,
Nicotina!
She winketh, but she does not speak;
I rub the chalk dust from my cheek,
Nicotina!
And feel inclined away to sneak,
Nicotina!
I cry, “my corns!” none hear my cries,
Nicotina!
And, rueful, rub my blacken’d eyes,
Nicotina!
My face is like to boneless size,
Up from my chin unto my eyes,
Nicotina!
On thy programme my name it lies,
Nicotina!
Oh! cursed boot! oh! cursed blow,
Nicotina!
I was not happy lying low,
Nicotina!
All night my nose with blood did flow;
A quart it bled, and more, I know,
Nicotina!
A damaged man, away I go,
Nicotina!
When my old pipe is lit by me
Nicotina!
I crawl about and think of thee,
Nicotina!
I do not dare to look at thee,
I fear him, tall as forest tree,
Nicotina!
I “cuss” him, and his pedigree.
Nicotina!
H. L.
O Darling Weed!
O darling weed! my heart’s delight,
Dear plant, the apple of my sight,
Thou hast a ray so warm and bright
I know no charm so exquisite
As puffing out thy smoke so white.
It puts all troublous thoughts to flight,
Sending dull spirits left and right,
While yielding joy by day and night.
This is a parody of a little poem by Alfred Tennyson, published in 1833, but afterwards omitted from his works, probably because of the ridicule it received from Lord Lytton in “The New Timon”:—
O darling room, my heart’s delight
Dear room, the apple of my sight,
With thy two couches soft and white,
There is no room so exquisite,
No little room so warm and bright,
Wherein to read, wherein to write.
* * * * *
The Weed.
I come from vaunted root, and burn
To many a merry sally;
I sparkle, and to ashes turn,
Men’s spirits worn to rally.
Thrice thirty ills that press folks down,
I fumigate like midges;
In country, city, little town,
My charm some care abridges.
Yon chattering Stiggins with a craze,
In little sharps and trebles,
A hubbub makes in my dispraise—
Demosthenes, sans pebbles.
Ay! chatter, with thy face of woe;
With bile and anger quiver;
Thus Antis come and Antis go,
But I’m smoked on for ever.
They go about, and fume and spout,
Against Tobacco railing,
With here and there a lusty shout,
And here and there a wailing.
I’m smoked on lawns and grassy plots,
By sportsmen in the covers;
My cloud’s blue as forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
There is not under moon and stars,
In this world’s wildernesses,
A plant that care more stoutly bars,
Or labour better blesses.
Behold my vapour curve and flow
Tow’rds where the pure clouds quiver;
Let antis come and antis go—
My smoke goes up for ever.
R. C.
Cope’s Tobacco Plant. March, 1874.
——:o:——
Song from the Mikado.
The travellers who try in the spring,
Tra la!
To sell their cigars by the case,
Must find it a difficult thing,
Tra la!
When the shopkeeper won’t buy a thing,
Tra la!
And kicks them right out of the place,
And he kicks them all out of his place.
And that’s what they mean when they say or they sing:
“Oh, bother the trade we are having this spring,”
Tra la la la la la, tra la la la la,
Tra la la la la la lah!
——:o:——
The following can scarcely be termed parodies, they are poems in praise of Tobacco written in the newly-revived but old-fashioned Ballade metre.
Ballade of the best Pipe.
I hear you fervently extol
The virtues of your ancient clay,
As black as any piece of coal.
To me it smells of rank decay
And bones of people passed away,—
A smell I never could admire.
With all respect to you I say,
Give me a finely seasoned briar.
Poor Jones, whose judgment as a whole
Is faultless, has been led astray
To nurse a costly meerschaum bowl.
Well, let him nurse it as he may,
I hardly think he’ll find it pay.
Before the colour gets much higher,
He’ll drop it on the grate some day.
Give me a finely seasoned brier.
The heathen Turk of Istamboul,
In Oriental turban gay,
Delights his unregenerate soul
With hookahs, bubbling in a way
To fill a Christian with dismay,
And wake the old Crusading fire.
May no such pipe be mine I pray!
Give me a finely seasoned brier
Envoy.
Clay, meerschaum, hookah, what are they
That I should view them with desire?
I’ll sing, till all my hair is grey,
Give me a finely seasoned brier.
The University News Sheet. St. Andrews, N.B. March 3, 1886.
The Ballade of Tobacco.
When verdant youth sees life afar,
And first sets out wild oats to sow,
He puffs a stiff and stark cigar,
And quaffs champagne of Mumm & Co.
He likes not smoking yet; but though
Tobacco makes him sick indeed,
Cigars and wine he can’t forego:—
A slave is each man to the weed.
In time his tastes more dainty are,
And delicate. Become a beau,
From out the country of the Czar
He brings his cigarettes, and lo!
He sips the vintage of Bordeaux.
Thus keener relish shall succeed
The baser liking we outgrow:—
A slave is each man to the weed.
When age and his own lucky star
To him perfected wisdom show,
The schooner glides across the bar,
And beer for him shall freely flow,
A pipe with genial warmth shall glow;
To which he turns in direst need,
To seek in smoke surcease of woe:—
A slave is each man to the weed.
Envoi.
Smokers! who doubt or con or pro,
And ye who dare to drink, take heed!
And see in smoke a friendly foe:—
L slave is each man to the weed.
Brander Matthews.
From Mr. Gleeson White’s collection of Ballades and Rondeaus. London, Walter Scott, 1887.
In a Cloud of Smoke.
A Rondel.
In a cloud of smoke when the lights are low
I half forget that I’m nearly “broke,”
And my cares and my sorrows they seem to go
In a cloud of smoke.
Ah, yes! ’tis a mystical “Basingstoke,”[25]
That guides my thoughts to a saner flow
So a fig to the Anti-Tobacco folk!
Her tongue has no “measured beat and slow;”
She says that in fumes narcotic I soak;
But her withering scorn seems to softer grow
In a cloud of smoke.
From Judy. April 18, 1888.
With Pipe and Book.
With Pipe and Book at close of day,
O! what is sweeter, mortal, say?
It matters not what book on knee,
Old Izaak or the Odyssey,
It matters not meerschaum or clay.
And though our eyes will dream astray,
And lips forget to sue or sway,
It is “enough to merely Be,”
With Pipe and Book.
What though our modern skies be grey,
As bards aver, I will not pray
For “soothing death” to “succour” me,
But ask thus much, O! Fate, of thee,
A little longer yet to stay
With Pipe and Book.
From Volumes in Folio. By Richard Le Gallienne, author of “My Ladies’ Sonnets,” etc. London, Elkin Matthews, Vigo Street, W. 1889.
A dainty little Volume of Bookish Verses.
Lines on an Empty Tobacco-pouch.
I, who was brisk and R T once,
Am C D now; become a dunce.
If U the reason would descry,
I’ll very quickly tell U Y.
I ne’er indulged in sad I—OOO!
When smoke was curling round my N—OOO;
But I am falling 2 D K,
Who could X L, no distant day.
I lack not T, or O D V,
But B 4 long my want U’ll C:
My pouch is M T; so, indeed,
I N V men with lots of weed.
I C U feel an interest
In what your poet would request;
There 4 I ask U 2 X QQQ
The plaint of my dejected M UUU.
I C U R the smoker’s friend;
Send me some weed, B 4 my end!
This craving I would fain ap PPP,
And smoke my pipe “O K” at EEE.
Declare I lived and died in peace,
If U should hear of my D CCC.
Erect an F-I-G of me,
And write this in my L-E-G.
Here lies a man of Letters, C,
Who shunned X S; and yet was E
Merry and YYY; a busy B,
Who never made an N M E.
From Cope’s Tobacco Plant. November 1871.
——:o:——
The Smoker’s Alphabet.
A was an Anti-Tobacconist moke,
B was the ’Bacca his neighbours would smoke,
C was the Counsel he forced on the world,
D was Derision, that at him was hurled.
E more Enlightened, would chuckle and say,
F “Fill your pipes, and puff nonsense away.”
G was a Guardsman, who lit a cigar;
H was the health that it never could mar.
I was an Irishman witty and gay,
J was the Joy that his pipe gave each day.
K was the Keel of the vessel that bore
L Lots of the “Weed” from Columbia’s shore.
M was the Mariner, chewing a quid,
N was a Noodle, who vowed “If he did,
O “Only ’Orrible qualms would arise.”
P was the Punch that he got ’twixt his eyes,
Q with the Quid; he turned sickly and wan,
R was the “Robert” who made him “move on.”
S was the Snuff, pungent, fragrant, and light,
T the Torment of Headache cured by it quite.
U the plant Universal, that is still
V the Victor over full many an ill.
W the Wealth, that its growers may hoard,
X is a Xebeck, with tobacco on board.
Y was a Yankee, who offered cheroots,
Z was a Zealot, who said “Fit for brutes!”
& the Yankee replied, “Brutes don’t talk, or wear boots.”
Anonymous.
