’Twill break our heart these scenes to leave,
But soldiers must obey;
Yet in my conscience I believe
You’re mad, Sir Cecil Wray.
For who will see us poor and lame,
Exposed on the highway,
And not with curses load the name
Of thee, Sir Cecil Wray?
These walls can talk of Minden’s plain,
Of England’s proudest day:
I think I hear these walls complain
Of thee, Sir Cecil Wray.
If thou art bent the poor to harm,
Attack the young and gay:
Girls both in health and beauty warm,—
But we are old, Sir Wray.
But Sir Cecil Wray had once published a volume of poems. Perhaps the crudest stroke of all—if the poor man had the sensitive nature of most poets—must have been certain parodies of these verses. Here are some. The notes are, of course, part of the parody.
On Celia Killing a Flea.
Thou great epitome of little death, all hail!
How blest thy fate beneath my Celia’s lovely nail!
No more thou’lt skip from sheet to sheet alive and well,
The furious nail and finger toll’d thy passing bell.
N. B.—The allusion to the noise made by the animal’s sudden death is beautifully descriptive of a passing bell.
On a Black Sow with a Litter of Thirteen Pigs.