THE JERRY-BUILDING JABBERWOCK.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"—
Ah, CARROLL! it is not in fun
Your song's light lilt we snatch.
Our Jabberwock's a real brute,
With mighty maw, and ruthless hand,
Who ravage makes beyond compute
In Civic Blunderland.
Look at the ogre's hideous mouth!
His tiger-teeth, his dragon-tail!
O'er Town, East, West, and North and South,
He leaves his slimy trail.
And where he comes all Beauty dies,
And where he halts all Greenery fades.
Pleasantness flies where'er he plies
His gruesomest of trades.
He blights the field, he blasts the wood,
With breath as fierce as prairie flame;
And where sweet works of Nature stood,
He leaves us—slums of shame.
The locust and the canker-worm
Are not more ruinous than he.
"I'll take this Eden—for a term!"
He cries, and howls with glee.
"Beauty? Mere bosh! Charm? Utter rot!
What boots your 'Earthly Paradise,'
Until 'tis made 'A Building Plot'?
Then it indeed looks nice!
"O Jerry Street! O Jerry Park!
O Jerry Gardens, Jerry Square!—
You won't discover—what a lark!—
One 'touch of Nature' there!
"'This handsome Villa Residence'
Means mud-built walls and clay-clogged walks;
And drains offensive to the sense,
And swamps whence fever stalks.
"Beauty's best friends I drive away,
Artists who sketch, ramblers who rove,
Lovers who spoon, children who play,—
All, all who Nature love.
"Nor do I give them wholesome homes
For verdant meads—no, there's the fun!
Stuccodom, frail and sickly, comes
After 'Lot Twenty-One!'
"I make a clearing, dig a trench,
Run up a shell of rotten bricks.
And thus the rule of sham and stench
Upon the 'site' I fix.
"The ugly and unhealthy still
Associate with the name of Jerry;
And thus I work my wicked will,
And flourish, and make merry!"
'Twas so the Jerry-Jabberwock
Sang in a suburb, void of shame,
Blunderland's civic will to mock,
And put its sense to shame.
This ogre of our towns to slay,
Where is the urban "Beamish Boy"?
CARROLL, when comes that "frabjous day,"
We'll "chortle in our joy."
Young County Council, are you one?
'Tis said you're but a Bumble-batch!
Beware the Jobjob Bird, and shun
The Bigot-Bandersnatch!
We'll pardon much that seems absurd,
Excuse some blunders that bewilder,
If you'll but "draw your vorpal sword"
And slay—the Jerry-Builder!
