BANK HOLIDAY BEAUTY.
(Protest by a Pretty Girl at the Crystal Palace.)
That "Beauty's decaying among us!"
By certain old fogies we're told.
Many poets have ceaselessly sung us!
But then even poets grow old.
Smelfungus has "been to the Palace,"
And Beauty, he thinks "going out."
Now can it be folly or malice?
Is he blind, or bald-headed and stout?
I think 'tis most likely the latter.
He's fifty, no doubt, if a day.
Yes, that I suspect's "what's the matter";
And then, who cares what he may say?
When he went to the Palace of Crystal,
He puffed, I've no doubt, and swigged port,
And what wonder then if he missed all
The Vision of Beauty at sport?
At Kiss in the Ring we were playing,
He envied us, that's where it is,
Because if near us he came straying
He knew we'd refuse him a kiss.
And so (as Tot puts it) he "telled a lie,"
To cover his nasty mean spite.
No, pessimist purblind and elderly,
Our looks weren't in fault, 'twas your sight!
What with Tennis, and one thing and t'other,
We're prettier than ever all round;
I'm nearly as strong as my brother,
Tall, straight, nimble, healthy, and sound.
And as to my teeth!—you don't know them,
Or else you have told what's not true;
You'd retract, were I only to show them,
And I feel I could show them—at you!
Evident.—In drinking the health of the Italian Parliament, the Toast of the evening ought to be,—as indeed every Toast when well done ought to be,—"Crispi."