There was a young lady of Niger,
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They came back from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.
Now let us compare this exquisite bit of real poesy with what Chaucer has written on the same theme:
A mayde ther ben, in Niger born and bredde;
Hire merye smyle went neere aboute hire hedde.
Uponne a beeste shee rood, a tyger gaye,
And sikerly shee laughen on hire waye.
Anon, as it bifel, bak from the ryde
Ther came, his sadel hangen doone bisyde,
The tyger. On his countenaunce the whyle
Ther ben behelde a gladnesse and a smyle.
Again, Austin Dobson chose to throw off the thing in triolet form:
She went for a ride,
That young lady of Niger;
Her smile was quite wide
As she went for a ride;
But she came back inside,
With the smile on the tiger!
She went for a ride,
That young lady of Niger.
Rossetti, with his inability to refrain from refrains, turned out this:
In Niger dwelt a lady fair,
(Bacon and eggs and a bar o' soap!)
Who smiled 'neath tangles of her hair,
As her steed began his steady lope.
(You like this style, I hope!)
On and on they sped and on,
(Bacon and eggs and a bar o' soap!)
On and on and on and on;
(You see I've not much scope.)
E'en ere they loped the second mile,
The tiger 'gan his mouth to ope;
Anon he halted for a while;
Then went on with a pleasant smile,
(Bacon and eggs and a bar o' soap!)
Omar looked at the situation philosophically, and summed up his views in such characteristic lines as these.
Why if the Soul can fling the Dust aside
And, smiling, on a Tiger blithely ride,
Were't not a Shame—were't not a Shame for him
In stupid Niger tamely to abide?
Strange, is it not? that, of the Myriads who
Before us rode the Sandy Desert through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road
Which to discover we ride smiling, too.
We are no other than a moving Row
Of Magic Niger-shapes that come and go
Round with the Smile-illumined Tiger held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show.
Tennyson saw a dramatic opportunity, and gloried in his chance, thus: