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قراءة كتاب Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, September 19, 1891
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, September 19, 1891
PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Vol. 101.
September 19, 1891.
OFF DUTY.
The "Daily Graphic" Weather-Young-Woman gets her "Sundays out."
SILENCE AND SLEEP.
(Lines written at Cock-crow.)
Night-time and silence! O'er the brooding hill
The last faint whisper of the zephyr dies;
Meadows and trees and lanes are hushed and still,
A shroud of mist on the slow river lies;
And the tall sentry poplars silent keep
Their lonely vigil in a world of sleep.
Yea, all men sleep who toiled throughout the day
At sport or work, and had their fill of sound,
The jest and laughter that we mate with play,
The beat of hoofs, the mill-wheel grinding round,
The anvil's note on summer breezes borne,
The sickle's sweep in fields of yellow corn.
And I too, as the hours go softly by,
Lie and forget, and yield to sleep's behest,
Leave for a space the world without a sigh,
And pass through silence into dreamless rest;
Like a tired swimmer floating tranquilly
Full in the tide upon a peaceful sea.
But hark, that sound! Again and yet again!
Darkness is cleft, the stricken silence breaks,
And sleep's soft veil is rudely rent in twain,
And weary nature all too soon, awakes;
Though through the gloom has pierced no ray of light,
To hail the dawn and bid farewell to night.
Still is it night, the world should yet sleep on,
And gather strength to meet the distant morn.
But one there is who, though no ray has shone,
Waits not, nor sleeps, but laughs all rest to scorn,
The demon-bird that crows his hideous jeer,
Restless, remorseless, hateful Chanticleer.
One did I say? Nay, hear them as they cry;
Six more accept the challenge of the foe:
From six stretched necks six more must make reply,
Echo, re-echo and prolong the crow.
First shrieking singly, then their notes they mix
In one combined cacophony of six.
Miscalled of poets "herald of the day,"
Spirit of evil, vain and wanton bird,
Was there then none to beg a moment's stay
Ere for thy being Fate decreed the word?
Could not ASCLEPIAS, when he ceased to be,
Take to the realms of death thy tribe and thee?
What boots it thus to question? for thou ART,
And still shalt be; but never canst be still,
Destined at midnight thus to play thy part,
And when all else is silent to be shrill.
Yea, as I lie all sleepless in the dark,
I love not those who housed thee in the Ark.
"AS GOOD AS A BETTER."
Dr. Andrew Wilson (in "Science Jottings," in the Illustrated London News) dares disparage Golf "as an ideal game for young men," venturing to advocate the preferential claims of fogeyish Cricket, and even of futile Lawn Tennis—
"O Scots, wha hae wi' BALFOUR teed."
What wull ye say to this disloyal, slanderous, sacrilegious ANDY? He hints that Golf is a mere modish fashion—even a fin de siècle fad!!! How many perfervid and patriotic Scots will
"Condemn his soul to eternal perdition
For his theory of the—National Game?"
He says "you hit a ball and walk after it, and manoeuvre it into a hole." Eugh! Such icy analysis would make Billiards a bore, and resolve "Knuckle-down" into nonsense! "It is not (Golf is not!) a proceeding (proceeding, quotha!) of which youths and young men should grow enamoured." As though, forsooth, Golf were a sort of elderly Siren luring limp and languorous youths into illegitimate courses; a passée Delilah, whose enervating fascinations sapped the virile vigour that might be dedicated to "that noblest of sports," Cricket, or even that "much better game," Lawn Tennis!!!
Surely the devotees of the Golf-cultus, the lovers of the Links, will be down like a "driver" upon Dr. WILSON. Oh, ANDY, ANDY, between you and your "brither Scots" there is henceforth "a great Golf fixed"!
A Cricket Paradox.
Though true without questioning, yet all the same,
It's a trifle perplexing to know what it means
That the counties that hate most to lose in a game
Would be pleased very much at your giving them Beans
WIGS ON THE (SEA) GREEN!—Some Frenchman (we are told by The Gentlewoman) has done Ladies a good turn by inventing a Bathing Wig, which keeps the hair dry without making the fair bather look "a fright." Hooray! SABRINA herself might shout for such an invention, which even the Nereids need not despise. DIZZY once sarcastically referred to certain "Bathing W(h)igs," but they were of another sort. Not even the most adventurous Tory could "steal the clothes" of our latter day "Bathing Wigs."
"FINE SALMON YOU'VE GOT THERE, POULTER!"—"SIXTY-FIVE POUNDS, MY LORD! SHALL I SEND IT HOME TO YOUR LORDSHIP?"—"WELL—ER—LOOK HERE! JUST CUT ME HALF A POUND OUT OF THE MIDDLE THERE, AND GIVE IT ME IN A PIECE OF PAPER!"THE TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.
No. VII.
SCENE—A Second-Class Compartment on the line between Wurzburg and Nuremberg. PODBURY has been dull and depressed all day, not having recovered from the parting with Miss TROTTER. CULCHARD, on the contrary, is almost ostentatiously cheerful. PODBURY is intensely anxious to find out how far his spirits are genuine, but—partly from shyness, and partly because some of their fellow travellers have been English—he has hesitated to introduce the subject. At last, however, they are alone, and he is determined to have it out on the very first opportunity.
"Puts me in mind o' the best part o' Box 'Ill."Culchard. Abominably slow train, this Schnell-zug. I hope we shall get to Nuremberg before it's too dark to see the general effect.
Podbury. We're not likely to be in time for table d'hôte—not that I'm peckish. (He sighs.) Wonder whereabouts the—the TROTTERS have got to by now, eh?
[He feels he is getting red, and hums the Garden Scene from "Faust."]
Culch. (indifferently). Oh, let me see—just