But these changes, tho' curious, are all a mere farce
Compared to the new "casus belli" of Mars,
Who, for years, has been suffering the horrors of quiet,
Uncheered by one glimmer of bloodshed or riot!
In vain from the clouds his belligerent brow
Did he pop forth, in hopes that somewhere or somehow,
Like Pat at a fair, he might "coax up a row:"
But the joke wouldn't take—the whole world had got wiser;
Men liked not to take a Great Gun for adviser;
And, still less, to march in fine clothes to be shot,
Without very well knowing for whom or for what.
The French, who of slaughter had had their full swing,
Were content with a shot, now and then, at their King;
While, in England, good fighting's a pastime so hard to gain,
Nobody's left to fight with, but Lord Cardigan.
'Tis needless to say then how monstrously happy
Old Mars has been made by what's now on the tapis;
How much it delights him to see the French rally,
In Liberty's name, around Mehemet Ali;
Well knowing that Satan himself could not find
A confection of mischief much more to his mind
Than the old Bonnet Rouge and the Bashaw combined.
Right well, too, he knows, that there ne'er were attackers,
Whatever their cause, that they didnt find backers;
While any slight care for Humanity's woes
May be soothed by that "Art Diplomatique," which shows
How to come in the most approved method to blows.
This is all for to-day—whether Mars is much vext
At his friend Thiers's exit, we'll know by our next.
THE TRIUMPHS OF FARCE.
Our earth, as it rolls thro' the regions of space,
Wears always two faces, the dark and the sunny;
And poor human life runs the same sort of race,
Being sad on one side—on the other side, funny.
Thus oft we, at eve, to the Haymarket hie,
To weep o'er the woes of Macready;—but scarce
Hath the tear-drop of Tragedy past from the eye,
When lo! we're all laughing in fits at the Farce.
And still let us laugh—preach the world as it may—
Where the cream of the joke is, the swarm will soon follow;
Heroics are very grand things in their way,
But the laugh at the long run will carry it hollow.
For instance, what sermon on human affairs
Could equal the scene that took place t'other day
'Twixt Romeo and Louis Philippe, on the stairs—
The Sublime and Ridiculous meeting half-way!
Yes, Jocus! gay god, whom the Gentiles supplied,
And whose worship not even among Christians declines,
In our senate thou'st languisht since Sheridan died,
But Sydney still keeps thee alive in our shrines.
Rare Sydney! thrice honored the stall where he sits,
And be his every honor he deigneth to climb at!
Had England a hierarchy formed all of wits,
Who but Sydney would England proclaim as its primate?