TO A VENETIAN POLICEMAN.
[The guardia municipale of Venice is now dressed like the London policeman.]
That afternoon when first you burst Upon my quite bewildered eyes, I seemed in London; you are too Confusing in that strange disguise.
The very clothes of blue! It's true In black kid gloves you are arrayed, No truncheon at your side you hide, A sword is openly displayed.
That vile black helmet yet you get, Most dismal head-dress ever planned. In Venice this! Where once doge, dunce, Dame, doctor, all were gay and grand.
In that prosaic dress! Oh, bless The man, why wear such awful things? In Venice long ago, we know, The costermongers looked like kings.
Italians love what's new, so you Suit buildings all, de haut en bas, Restored and new—how bad and sad! But you're a still worse novità.
A peeler pacing here—how queer! A copper checking crimes and larks, When gleams on lone lagoon the moon! A bobby's beat beside St. Mark's!
By a Birkenhead Man.—The Lever, though strong, could not quite lift the Liberal minority into power, but it brought the Conservative majority down to its Lees!