A TERRIBLE TRANSFORMATION;
Or, Evolution Gone Wrong.
["It is probable that the butterfly postillion, by an inverse process of evolution, becomes in time the sombre fly-driver."—James Payn.]
Oh, polychromatic postillion, Who scoureth the Scarborough plains, And beareth the travelling million For infinitesimal gains; Oh, butterfly, picture thee—there is the rub!— Developing backwards to worse than a grub!
It fills me with doldrums and dolour. To picture thy scarlet and blue Becoming so sadly "off colour," Descending to bumblebee hue; To dandy-grey russet; dunducketty dun! Oh, Payn, this is painful. You must be in fun!
A fly-driver frumpy and fusty? You might as well just be a fly, All fuzzy, and buzzy, and dusty, A horror to ear and to eye, A-booming about and fly-blowing the crockery, No, no, gentle Payn, this is surely mere mockery.
Would Darwin were here to demolish "Development" turned upside down. Yon urchin in pink and high polish Degraded to rain-beaten brown? A butterfly turned a blackbeetle were sad, But nought to the fate of our postboy, poor lad!
A Hansom may sink to a "Shoful," A racer descend to the rank; But this metamorphosis woeful Is fortune's most pitiless prank. Smart urchin in emerald, cobalt, vermilion, Turn fly-driver? Far better die a postillion.