THOUGHTS ON THE SAVAGE LIONS OF LONDON.
BY A FRIEND AND A BROTHER.
You may talk as you please of magnetic attraction,
Electro-biology, media, and stuff:
Rapping for Spirits don't give satisfaction,
The relatives never relate half enough.
Tables on castors, and castors on tables,
All I have turn'd to alike in their turn;
Mesmeric stories are nothing but fables,
Stories indeed, which intelligence spurns.
In all these sensations I own I'm a scorner,
Never in them have my feelings a part;
But, where Gordon Cumming was, near Hyde Park Corner,
Oh! there, there is something that touches the heart!
His exhibition of skins show'd the ravages
Hunters can make with the savage wild beast;
But now they have got there a troupe of wild Savages,
Who have not (as yet!) of their guests made a feast.
Kafirs from Borioboola, or somewhere—
There are delighting the civilised world:
Belles from Belgravia in afternoons come there;
Thither the fairest of May-fair are whirl'd.
Dowagers craving for something exciting,
Gentlemen blasé with Fashion's dull round,
Those who find novelty always delighting,
With those dear Kafirs may daily be found.
And delightful it is there, to see them transacting
Their business of marriage, and murder, and war;
Delightful to sit there, and know that 'tis acting,
And not the real thing—which, of course, we abhor.
We see in each movement such truth of expression,
Their stampings and kickings are done with such grace,
That ladies of title e'en make the confession
That they in the Savage—nobility trace!
But chief the delight, when the acting is ended,
To go to the room from which Cumming is gone,
And there inspect closely their figures so splendid,
And, timidly, even shake hands with each one,
And their dear little baby we smother with kisses,
And stroke and admire its darling bronze skin,
And think that there ne'er was a baby like this is,
As a lion of London its life to begin.
It is all very proper to say that a baby
Might be found nearer home, if we sought for a pet,
And that in the back courts of St. Giles's, it may be,
Hordes of young savages there we could get:
But, they've no fancy dresses to set off their figures,
And nothing is thought of an every-day sight;
And "Uncle Tom"'s roused such a penchant for niggers,
That dark skins must now take precedence of white.
That little dark baby could never have vices
Like those which degrade us in civilised life;
And though he may p'raps chop his father in slices,
His country has customs that legalise strife.
But, really—what humbugs call—Civilisation,
Seems spreading everywhere under the skies,
That soon, I suppose, we shall not have a nation
To furnish a savage to gladden our eyes.