TO A SWISS BAROMETER.
Oh, optimistic instrument,
No other ever seeks
To raise one's hopes—benevolent
You always show Beau fixe!
Though meteorologic swells
Predict wet days for weeks,
Your well-intentioned pointer tells
Of nothing but Beau fixe.
How sweet, when in the dewy morn—
So dewy!—up the peaks
We start through drizzle all forlorn,
To read again Beau fixe.
It makes us think of sunny lands,
Where weather has no freaks,
To see, they're always so, your hands
Both point to that Beau fixe.
And though we're sodden to the skin,
Through coat and vest and breeks,
You did not mean to take us in
In spite of your Beau fixe.
We tramp, expecting soon to see
In that grey sky some streaks;
Ah no, it's fixed as fixed can be,
As fixed as your Beau fixe.
No matter, we get used to rain,
And mop our streaming cheeks,
Quite sure, when we get home again,
You cannot say Beau fixe.
At last, all soaked, we stagger in—
One's clothing simply leaks—
And still you say, through thick and thin,
Unchangeably Beau fixe.
We change, although you don't; no thread
Is dry on us; small creeks
Form where we stand, all drenched from head
To foot. Blow your Beau fixe!
This beastly weather might have riled
The philosophic Greeks;
It makes us simple Britons wild,
Combined with your Beau fixe.
We tell the landlord we must go—
Poor man, he rather piques
Himself upon the weather, so
Incessantly Beau fixe.
"Ah, non, ça va changer ce soir!"
Thus hopefully he speaks,
"Si Monsieur voulait bien voir
Le baromètre—Beau fixe!"
AN AUTHORITY ON THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE "BUFFER STATE"!!
Adapted.
(To the Unionist Needs of the Moment.)
Other men have many faults,
Mr. Gladstone has but two;
There's nothing wise that he can say,
and nothing right that he can do.
In a recent case, Mr. Lane, the magistrate, is reported to have informed an inquiring husband, "If your wife turns you out she is not bound to find you a home; but if you turn your wife out you are bound to find her a home." This suggests a new Charity, "The Home for Turned-out Wives." These ladies would be seen driving out in well-appointed traps, and gain a new status in Society as being "uncommonly well-turned-out" wives.