SINGLE BLESSEDNESS.
Of Wellington our mouths are full,
We dote on Sundays on John Bull,
With Pa and Ma on selfsame side,
Our house has never to divide—
No opposition members be
In our united family.
Miss Pope her “Light Guitar” enjoys,
Her father “cannot bear the noise,”
Her mother’s charm’d with all her songs,
Her brother jangles with the tongs.
Thus discord out of music springs,
The most unnatural of things,
Unlike the genuine harmony
In our united family!
We all on vocal music dote;
To each belongs a tuneful throat,
And all prefer that Irish boon
Of melody—“The Young May Moon”—
By choice we all select the harp,
Nor is the voice of one too sharp,
Another flat—all in one key
Is our united family.
Miss Powell likes to draw and paint,
But then it would provoke a saint,
Her brother takes her sheep for pigs,
And says her trees are periwigs.
Pa praises all, black, blue, or brown;
And so does Ma—but upside down!
They cannot with the same eye see,
Like our united family.
Miss Patterson has been to France,
Her heart’s delight is in a dance;
The thing her brother cannot bear,
So she must practise with a chair.
Then at a waltz her mother winks;
But Pa says roundly what he thinks,
All dos-à-dos, not vis-à-vis,
Like our united family.
We none of us that whirling love,
Which both our parents disapprove,
A hornpipe we delight in more,
Or graceful Minuet de la Cour—
A special favourite with Mamma,
Who used to dance it with Papa,
In this we still keep step, you see,
In our united family.
Then books—to bear the Cobb’s debates!
One worships Scott—another hates,
Monk Lewis Ann fights stoutly for,
And Jane likes “Bunyan’s Holy War.”
The father on Macculloch pores,
The mother says all books are bores;
But blue serene as heav’n are we,
In our united family.
We never wrangle to exalt
Scott, Banim, Bulwer, Hope, or Galt,
We care not whether Smith or Hook,
So that a novel be the book,
And in one point we all are fast,
Of novels we prefer the last,—
In that the very heads agree
Of our united family!