MR. PUNCH TO TWO NOBLE SPORTSMEN.
What, Ladas licked and the stout Valkyrie sunk!
How are the hopes of noble champions shrunk!
Oh, most unfrabjous day!
No more can Rosebery boast the unbeaten "crack,"
No more that yacht will go "galumphing back"
Prize-winner glad and gay!
Punch sympathises with his friend Dunraven,
Who nevermore may see return to haven
That gallant, luckless yacht.
Primrose, dear boy, even the fleet Ladas
May yield without disgrace to Isinglass,
But Bullingdon!—that's hot!
Perchance the Nonconformist Conscience now
May be conciliated! Anyhow
The horse may "come again,"
But that proud yacht lies twenty fathom deep!
May Neptune carefully and kindly keep
That hull beneath his main.
Sure there is nothing of her but should change
Sea-shapen into something rich and strange.
Well, England will regret
With a good, sportsman by disaster struck,
And hope he'll live with a new yacht—and luck
To lick the Yankee yet!