THE ANCIENT MILLINER.
(His Reminiscences of the Recent Gale.)
PART I.
IT was the Ancient Milliner
Stood by his open door;
The tale he told was something like
A tale I'd heard before.
* * * *
I called forthwith a Hansom, and
"Now, Cabman, drive!" I cried;
"For I must get this bandbox home
Before the eventide.
Raining Cats and Dogs
"The bride a-pacing up the aisle
Mad as a dog would be,
Without this sweet confection of
Silk and passementerie."
Westward the good cab flew. The horse
Was kick-some, wild, and gay;
He tossed his head from side to side
In an offensive way.
He tossed his head, he shook his mane,
And he was big and black;
He wore a little mackintosh
Upon his monstrous back.
I mused upon that mackintosh,
All mournfully mused I;
It was too small a thing to keep
So large a beastie dry.
And on we went up Oxford Street
With a short, uneasy motion;
What made the beast go sideways I
Have not the faintest notion
But we ran into an omnibus
With a short, uneasy motion.
All in a hot, improper way.
The rude 'bus-driver said,
That them what couldn't drive a horse
Should try a moke instead.
Never a word my cabman spoke—
No audible reply—
But, oh, a thousand scathing things
He thought; and so did I.
"What ails thee, Ancient Milliner?
What means thy ashen hue?
Why look'st thou so?"—I murmured, "Blow!"
And at my word it blew.
PART II.
The storm-blast came down Edgware Road,
Shrieking in furious glee,
It struck the cab, and both its doors
Leaped open, flying free.
I shut those doors, and kept them close
With all my might and main;
The storm-blast snatched them from my hands,
And forced them back again,
It blew the cabman from his perch
Towards the hornéd moon;
I saw him dimly overhead
Sail like a bad balloon.
It blew the bandbox far away
Across the angry sea;
The English Channel's scattered with
Silk and passementerie.
The silly horse within the shaft
One moment did remain;
And then the harness snapped, and he
Went flying through the rain;
And fell, a four-legged meteor,
Upon the coast of Spain.
First Voice.
"What makes that cab move on so fast
Wherein no horse I find?"
Second Voice.
"The horse has cut away before;
The cab's blown from behind."
Then just against the Harrow Road
I made one desperate bound—
A leprous lamp-post and myself
Lay mingled in a swound!
And cables snapped, and all things snapped;
When the next morn was grey,
The Telegraph appeared without
Its "Paris Day by Day."
PART III.
Oh, cheapness is a pleasant thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To get a thing at one-and-four,
For which your friend pays twopence more,
Is balm unto the soul.
And cheaper than that Hansom cab
Whose tale I've told thee thus,
Far cheaper it had been to take
The stately omnibus!
To take the stately omnibus
Where all together sit;
Each takes his ticket in his hands,
Obeys the Company's commands,
And pays his pence for it.
And if you would not find yourself
Wrecked in the Edgware Road,
Do not be vulgar and declare
You wish you may be blowed!