A PATHETIC LAMENT.

(Respectfully addressed to one of the Promoters of the Anti-Advertisement League by a Repentant Subscriber.)

Being gifted with decent taste and a sensitive eye,

I have never been much beguiled

By advertisements, crude in colour, and ten feet high

(Which, in fact, I rather reviled);

And, as for gigantic signs swinging up in the sky—

They drove me perfectly wild!

II.

Then the lurid posters on paling and chimney-stack

Were the terror of every town—

Till a League was started by Mr. William Black

For the purpose of putting them down;

And the sympathetic invited its efforts to back

With an annual half-a-crown.

III.

So I cheerfully paid the fee, and my name was enrolled,

And a solemn oath I swore;

(As is usual on such occasions,—or so I'm told)

That, in future, no shop or store

Which aggressively advertised any article sold

I would patronise any more!

IV.

But that mad rash oath I recall with a vain regret,

As I brood in bitter complaint,

On the number of useful things that I'm dying to get—

And my conscience tells me I mayn't!

As their various virtues are vaunted in letters of jet,

Or gaudier gilding and paint!

I should like to be clean if I could—but I cannot cope,

Without saponaceous aid,

With a shower of London smuts—and I'm losing hope,

Getting daily a dingier shade,

In a futile search for a genuine Toilet-soap

That has shunned meretricious parade!

VI.

My villa would be—when it's furnished—the cosiest nest,

But I fear it is doomed to be bare;

For upholsterers' puffs are now a persistent pest,

And so shamelessly each will declare

His "Elegant Dining and Drawing-room suites" are the "cheapest and best"—

That I daren't choose so much as a chair!

VII.

I would fly to the Ocean shore, or the Continent,

To escape from a lot accurst;

But here, by my own parole, I'm a prisoner pent!

I must find a Company first

That doesn't resort to obtrusive advertisement—

And the Railway ones are the worst!

VIII.

And now I'm developing symptoms of bodily ills,

But, however sanguine I've felt,

Of a cure from So-and-So's Syrup, Elixir, or Pills,

Or his Neuro-magnetic Belt—

Can I buy, when their fame is based on a stratum of bills

Down every area dealt?

IX.

And even my path to a tranquil tomb is barred

While that oath continues to bind;

For a coffin and funeral car will be somewhat hard

For a faithful adherent to find—

When already each undertaker has left a card

With his terms and "inquiries kind"!

So you see, Mr. William Black, what a mess I've made!

And you'll own my dilemmas are due

To the oath which I took when I followed your precious crusade.

If its terms were drafted by you,

You may know some ingenious means their effect to evade—

Kindly drop me a line if you do!