RANELAGH IN RAIN.
How sweet this road is, fringed by hedgerow elm,
Where peeps in May the hawthorn's snowy bud,
A fairy place that seems Titania's realm!
By Jove, what mud!
How sweet this turf, as soft as finest moss!
Such "gazon anglais" we alone can get.
Oh hang it, no! I cannot walk across,
It's soaking wet!
How sweet that lake, where gentle eddies play!
But all around seems lake, through rainfall dim.
Why want a pond, when on dry (!) land to-day
We almost swim?
How sweet—to get a Hansom home again,
And leave this aguish, rheumatic damp!
I do not love thee, Ranelagh, in rain,
Beneath a gamp.