THE PRAISE OF PUNCH.
I love thee, Punch! with all thy faults and failings,
Spite of the strait-laced folks and all their railings;
I love thee in thy state etherial,
Thou grateful compound of strange contradictions!
Filling the brain with Fancy's vivid fictions:
Thou castle-building wight!
Urging Imagination's airy flight;
Chasing blue devils from their dismal revels;
Spurning this sombre world of selfish sadness,
And changing sounds of woe to notes of gladness:
Call'd by whatever name,
Rum, Rack, or Toddy,—thou soul without a body!
Thy welcome is the same.
I like-wise love thee in thy state material,
Thou merry fellow, Punchinello!
Thou chip of an old block!
Thou wooden god of fun!—practical pun!
Thou hearty cock!
Thou dissipator of Policeman's vapours,
In whose grim face,
Ting'd with the blueishness of nothing-to-doishness,
We oft may trace
A grin as he beholds thee cut thy capers.
"Pet of the Petticoats!" lov'd of Servant Maid,
So neat and staid;
Who, from the area steps, with furtive eyes,
Surveys thy antics in a mute surprise;
Belov'd of Errand Boy! who little cares
For weighty matters he unconscious bears,
If Punch in all his glory stops his way,
Tempting the varlet with a priceless play.
Delight of young and old, of great and small!
Tho' of each grosser passion thou'rt the slave,
Albeit thou'rt rake and rogue, and thief and knave,
Of ev'ry grace and goodness quite bereft,
With not a virtue to redeem thee left;
Spite of thy faults, oh, Punch! we love thee all!
And hence thy Wooden Worship dost impart
A moral sound to every conscious heart:
Thou show'st us, Punch, that we're not over-nice
When wit and humour are allied to vice.
But as thy close acquaintance brings hard knocks
On wooden blocks,—
So, if we'd 'scape a world of awkward trouble,
Whene'er in real life we meet thy double
(And rogues of thews and sinews, flesh and blood,
Are not so harmless quite as those of wood),
Let us observe this rule,—this prudent plan—
Enjoy the humour, but avoid the man.