And tried to take breath in the nip of North-Easters? No, Algernon Charles, or you’d never talk so!
(Four verses omitted.)
The body is drenched one dismal moment, the next one’s skin is as dry as starch.
Its rains that chill us are most disgusting, and equally so are its gales that parch.
What! kindle mortals to love and laughter by lauding the beastliest winds that blow?
Arouse our fondness for wintry wetness, for choking dust or for blinding snow?
No, no, your lips are eloquent, Algernon, set in Apollo’s own genuine arch;
But neither the flame that fires your tropes, nor the fervour that setteth your figures aglow,
Shall gammon us into the fatuous folly of making a god of the wind of March!
Punch. March 17, 1888.