FAMILY POETRY.
—Modo sumptâ veste virili!—HOR.
Zooks! I must woo the Muse to-day,
Though line before I’d never wrote!
“On what occasion?” do you say?
OUR DICK HAS GOT A LONG-TAIL’D COAT!
Not a coatee, which soldiers wear
Button’d up high about the throat,
But easy, flowing, debonair—
In short a civil long-tail’d Coat.
A smarter you’ll not find in town
Cut by Nugee, that Snip of note;
A very quiet olive-brown
’s the colour of Dick’s long-tail’d Coat.
Gay jackets clothe the stately Pole,
The proud Hungarian, and the Croat,
Yet Esterhazy, on the whole,
Looks best when in a long-tail’d Coat.
Lord Byron most admired, we know,
The Albanian dress, or Suliote;
But then he died some years ago,
And never saw Dick’s long-tail’d Coat.
Or, past all doubt, the Poet’s theme
Had never been the “White Capote,”
Had he once view’d, in Fancy’s dream,
The glories of Dick’s long-tail’d Coat.
We also know on Highland kilt
Poor dear Glengary used to dote,
And had esteem’d it actual guilt
I’ “the Gael” to wear a long-tail’d Coat,
No wonder ’twould his eyes annoy,
Monkbarns himself would never quote
“Sir Robert Sibbald,” “Gordon,” “Roy,”
Or “Stukely” for a long-tail’d Coat.
Jackets may do to ride a race,
Or row in, when one’s in a boat;
But, in the Boudoir, sure, for grace
There’s nothing like Dick’s long-tail’d Coat.
Of course, in climbing up a tree,
On terra firma, or afloat.
To mount the giddy top-mast, he
Would doff awhile his long-tail’d Coat.
What makes you simper, then, and sneer?
From out your own eye pull the mote;
A pretty thing for you to jeer!
Haven’t you, too, got a long-tail’d Coat?
Oh! “Dick’s scarce old enough,” you mean?
Why, though too young to give a vote,
Or make a will, yet, sure, Fifteen
’s a ripe age for a long-tail’d Coat.
What! would you have him sport a chin
Like Colonel Stanhope, or that goat
O’Gorman Mahon, ere begin
To figure in a long-tail’d Coat?
Suppose he goes to France—can he
Sit down at any table d’hôte,
With any sort of decency,
Unless he’s got a long-tail’d Coat?
Why Louis Philippe, Royal Cit,
There soon may be a sans culotte;
And Nugents self must then admit
The advantage of a long-tail’d Coat.
Things are not now as when, of yore,
In Tower encircled by a moat,
The lion-hearted chieftain wore
A corselet for a long-tail’d Coat.
Then ample mail his form embraced,
Not, like a weazel, or a stoat,
“Cribb’d and confined” about the waist,
And pinch’d in, like Dick’s long-tail’d Coat;—
With beamy spear, orbiting axe,
To right and left he thrust and smote—
Ah! what a change! no sinewy thwacks
Fall from a modern long tail’d Coat.
For stalwart knights, a puny race
In stays, with locks en papillote,
While cuirass, cuisses, greaves give place
To silk-net Tights, and long-tail’d Coat.
Worse changes still! now, well-a-day!
A few cant phrases learnt by rote
Each beardless booby spouts away,
A Solon, in a long-tail’d Coat.
Prates of “The march of intellect”—
—“The schoolmaster” a Patriote
So noble, who could ere suspect
Had just put on a long-tail’d Coat?
Alack! Alack! that every thick-
skull’d lad must find an antidote
For England’s woes, because, like Dick.
He has put on a long-tail’d Coat.
But lo! my rhymes begin to fail,
Nor can I longer time devote;
Thus rhyme and time cut short the tale,
The long tale of Dick’s long-tail’d Coat.