PEACE AT THE SEASIDE.
[The public are being passionately warned against the threatened crush at watering-places in August of this year of Peace.]
Stoutly we bore with April's icy blizzards;
"The worst of Spring," we said, "will soon be through;
Summer is bound to come and warm our gizzards
And we shall gambol by the briny blue."
But even as we put the annual question,
"Where shall we water? on what golden strand?"
Warnings appear of terrible congestion,
Of lodgers countless as the local sand.
Lucky the man, the hardened strap-suspender,
Who with a first-class ticket, there and back,
Finds a precarious seat upon the tender,
A rocky berth upon the baggage-rack.
Should he arrive, the breath of life still in him,
His face will be repulsed from door to door;
He'll get no lodging, not the very minim,
Save under heaven on the pebbly shore.
In vain he pleads for stall-room in the stable;
The cellars are engaged; 'tis idle talk
To ask for bedding on the billiard-table—
Two families are there, each side of baulk.
Next morn he fain would wash in ocean's spray (there's
Balm in the waves that helps you to forget),
And lo! the deep is simply stiff with bathers;
He has no chance of even getting wet.
He starves as never in the age of rations;
The fishy produce of the boundless sea
Fails to appease the hungry trippers' passions
Who barely pouch one shrimp apiece for tea.
"I came," he says, "to swallow priceless ozone
Under Britannia's elemental spell;
She rules the waves, as all her conquered foes own;
I wish she ruled her seasides half as well.
"I don't know what the beaten Bosch may suffer
Compared with us who won the late dispute,
But if it equals this (it can't be tougher),
Why, then I feel some pity for the brute."
So by the London train upon the morrow
From holiday delights he gets release,
Conspuing, more in anger than in sorrow,
The pestilent amenities of Peace.
O.S.