THE FIRST OF MAY.
RINCE Albert of Saxe Coburg
By the Cinque Ports he swore,
He’d make an Exhibition
That was never seen before.
By the Cinque Ports he swore it,
And named an opening day:
And letters wrote to left and right,
To bid the universe unite
Upon the First of May.
Left and right the letters went,
To city, realm, and coast;
And answers came most civilly,
By the return of post.
Shame on the lazy Nation,
That will not join her share,
With Albert and Britannia,
To swell the World’s great Fair!
The parcels and the packages
Come bundling in amain,
By many a creaking waggon;
By many a flying train;
By many a van of Pickford’s,
That filled with ponderous care,
Makes every passer by exclaim,
“Good gracious, just look there!”
From autocratic Russia,
Where growls the unctuous Bear,
Who covers native Poles with grief,
And British polls with hair;
From France, the land of elegance,
And witty elocution,
Whose clever hands make all things well
Except a constitution;
From the far-off Republic,
On Transatlantic waves,
Who blazons stars of liberty
Upon the stripes of slaves;
From where the Alpine snows surround
The workshops of the free;
From where in fettered sadness burns
The muse of Italy!
. . . . .
The Prince and the Commission
A weary life they led:
No time had they for dining,
And rather less for bed.
They couldn’t choose a building,
They couldn’t find a site:
And our good Queen Victoria
Grew tired—as well she might.
For good advice in pamphlets,
And prophecies in calf,
And groans to make him shudder,
And sneers to make him laugh,
And hints and threats and warnings,
Plan, diagram, and view,
Choked up the Prince’s davenport,
And filled his pockets too.
“To eastward and to westward,”
’Twas said, “alarm is spreading;
“The foreigners will eat us
“Out of house and home and bedding;
“Taxation will be trebled,
“And sadder far to tell,
“Thanks to the horrid papers,
“The tickets will not sell!”
I wis, in all the Palace
There was no heart so bold,
But wished himself well out of it,
When that ill news was told.
Up rose at length Prince Albert,
Up rose the whole Commission,
And at the footstool of the throne
They laid the Exhibition.