'Tis merry 'neath the mistletoe!
[SOUND WITHOUT SENSE.]
A POEM FOR RECITATION.
(A Certain Person, staying at Sniggerton-on-Sea, was asked by the Vicar to give a recitation at one of the Penny Readings. But when the evening came he found, as usual, he had been too lazy to learn anything. Nothing daunted, he stepped on the platform, with a profound bow and a defiant air, and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am about to attempt a recitation of the celebrated poem, so widely known as 'The Capstan Bar.'" Great applause. Awkward people, regardless of grammar, whisper, "Who by?" Officious people, regardless of truth, say, "Byron, Longfellow, Tennyson, Wendell Holmes, Browning, Bret Harte, &c., &c." Mild people say, "O, yes, of course, how stupid; recollect the piece very well now you mention it." Impatient people say, "S-s-s-sh!" and the C. P., fixing a nervous old Lady in the front row with his eye, thus begins)—
A
And laughed aloud at the topping lift and jeered at the garboard streak!
Yet the wayward windlass is blithe and gay, there's brass in the County Bank,
There is ale to drink as we sit and think, and knots in the oaken plank: