LONDON SMOKE.
First Day of Term.
The
field-sports'
rule reversed
by legal
wags,
He clips.
Bags do not
bear
the fox,
but foxes,
bags.
Orange Lodge.
Smoke rules the roast! November, foggy, drear;
Oh! when from darkness will its days desist?
Month of suspicion, that leaves all to clear,
For though nought's stolen, everything is mist!
It is a bully month, whose vapouring flies
Wherever man is found, or woman walks;
An equal favourer of dis-guise and Guys,
Assassin patron both of knives and Faukes!
Densely impervious is its dark-winged air,
Driver of soot from roofs and chimney stacks,
London its fort—it is accounted there
The Great Emancipator of the blacks!
Smoke is its sister, and assister too;
Protean creature, taking every form,—
Now gently rising from an Irish stew,
Now rushing from a steamer in a storm!
Smoke; lo! it curleth from the Meersham fine,
Say it dissolves—so is mere sham to boot—
Clearly as-cended from the female line,
At all events, it comes from a she root!
Now it runs up a pipe, with odorous charms,
Bringing effluvia from the flue: who dips
In heraldry, will see its coat of arms
Should bear the barber's motto of "Eclipse."
Smoke will have sway; a very dingy yoke
It keeps us under, and 'tis time we broke it;
Alas! we can't, and e'en our very joke,
Reader, we find is nothing till you smoke it.
Smoke and November, then, go hand in hand,
Till time dismiss them thro' his "chaos" gates;
Time is a man of taste, he clears the land,
And just like smoke itself—he vapour hates!
5. William the Third landed.
Oranges come in.
All Orange lodges are by law forbad!
How so!—When into Bartolph Lane one dodges,
And finds, in plain defiance, man and lad,
Christian and Jew, all keeping Orange lodges?
11. St. Martin. (Patron of Betty.)
NOVEMBER—Law-Life Assurance.