Our confidence towards you never flinches,
Let others be unceasingly employed
In working out the barometric inches,
Or tapping at the fickle aneroid,
Wet bulb and dry we equally avoid,
In you, and you alone, our hopes remain,
Then be not by our forwardness annoyed,
Nor let our supplications rise in vain,—
Oh, Daily Graphic maid, smile, smile on us again!
THE YELLOW RIDING-HABIT.
Chang, he had a yellow jacket
Fitting rather nice and slick;
When the garment got the sack, it
Made him simply deathly sick;
And he swore, with objurgations,
It was due—or he'd be hung—
To the fiendish machinations
Of a man who rhymed with Bung.
But his lord in mild, celestial,
Manner moralised and said—
"There are other really bestial
Things I might have done instead;
Might, in point of fact, have tied you
To a poplar with a splice,
And explicitly denied you
Every claim to Paradise.
Nay, I even wondered whether
I should play another card,
And reduce your dorsal tether
By a matter of a yard;
Or curtail your nether raiment,
(This I waived as rather coarse,)
Or appropriate your payment
As a marshal of the force.
But I gave you just a gentle,
If humiliating, shock,
Much as any Occidental
Castigates the erring jock,
Who in place of freely plugging
At a reasonable rate,
By irregularly lugging
Lets a rival take the plate.
Thus I delicately hinted
It was time to jog your gee;
And the proper view is printed,
In the pagan P. M. G.,
Namely, that you might be chary
Of a deal of sultry dirt,
And do better in an airy
Waistcoat with a cotton shirt.
Doubtless habits have a lot to
Do with character as such,
Yet the prophet warns us not to
Trust in colour very much;
And indeed your yellow custard
Came to smack of rotten cheese,
Since they took to making mustard
Books and Asters over-seas."