PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

My fire was low; my bills were high;

My sip of punch was in its ladle;

The clarion chimes were in the sky;

The nascent year was in its cradle.

In sober prose to tell my tale,

'Twas New Year's E'en, when, blind to danger,

All older-fashioned nurses hail

With joy "another little stranger."

The glass was in my hand—but, wait,

Methought, awhile! 'Tis early toasting

With pæans too precipitate

A baby scarce an outline boasting:

One week at least of life must flit

For me to match it with its brothers—

I'll wager, like most infants, it

Is wholly different from others.

He frolics, latest of the lot,

A family prolific reckoned;

He occupies his tiny cot,

The eighteen-hundred-ninety-second!

The pretty darling, gently nursed

Of course, he lies, and fondly petted!

The eighteen-hundred-ninety-first

Is not, I fancy, much regretted.

You call him "fine"—he's great in size,

And "promising"—there issue from his

Tough larynx quite stentorian cries;

Such notes are haply notes of promise.

Look out for squalls, I tell you; soft

And dove-like atoms more engage us;

Your fin-de-siècle child is oft

Loud, brazen, grasping, and rampageous.

You bid me next his eyes adore;

So "deep and wideawake," they beckon;

We've suffered lately on the score

Of "deep and wideawake," I reckon.

You term me an "unfeeling brute,"

A "monster Herod-like," and so on—

You may be right; I'll not dispute;

I'll cease a brat's good name to blow on.

Who'll read the bantling's dawning days?—

Precocious shall he prove, and harass

The world with inconvenient ways

And lisped conundrums that embarrass?

(Such as Impressionists delight

To offer each æsthetic gaper,

And faddists hyper-Ibsenite

Rejoice to perpetrate on paper?)

Or, one of those young scamps perhaps

Who love to rig their bogus bogies,

And set their artful booby-traps

For over-unsuspicious fogies?

Or haply, only commonplace—

A plodding sort of good apprentice,

Who does his master's will with grace,

And hurries meekly where he sent is?

And, when he grows apace, what blend

Of genius, chivalry and daring,

What virtues might our little friend

Display to brighten souls despairing?

What quiet charities unknown,

What modest, openhanded kindness,

What tolerance in touch and tone

For braggart human nature's blindness?

Or what—the worser part to view—

Of wanton waste and reckless gambling,

What darker paths shall he pursue

With sacrilegious step and shambling?

What coarse defiance, haply, hurl

At lights beyond his comprehension—

An attitudinising churl

Who struts with ludicrous pretension.

I know not—only this I know,

They're getting overstrained, my ditties,

This kind of poem ought to flow

Less like a solemn "Nunc Dimittis."

'Twas jaunty when I struck my lyre,

And jaunty seems this yearling baby;

But, as both year and song expire

They're sadder, each, and wiser, maybe.

I'm a young writer grimly gay,

My volumes sell, and sometimes pay.

First log-rollers raised a rumour of a rising Star of Humour,

Who had faced the Sphinx called Life,

With amusing misery rife,

So with sin, and woe, and strife, I thought I'd have a lark.

With pessimistic pick I pottered round

Pottered round,

A new "funny" trick I quickly found,

Smart and sound,

Life's cares in hedonistic chuckles drowned,

You be bound!

The cynic lay

I found would pay,

In a young Man of Mark!

All of you come along with me!

I'm for a rare new fine new spree!

Everybody is delighted when the Philistines are slighted,

All of you come my books to try!

I-twaddley-I-ti I-I-I,

Ego for ever! Buy! Buy! Buy!

And I'm all right!

Down with the West I go; my pen

Is bound to "fetch" the Upper Ten,

With the aid of some "log-rolling," my "distinction" much extolling.

Smart little scribes from near and far

Say, with a sniff, "O here's a Star!"

DICKENS on fine souls doth jar, THACKERAY is too dry,

But his pessimistic air, rich and rare,

Subtle, fair,

Makes Philistia to stare, in a scare,

And to blare;

Whilst true Critics débonnaire, who are rare,

With a flaire,

For true humour,

Swell of rumour

The gregarious cry.

All of you come along with me!

You'll have a rare new fair new spree!

Paradox with "sniff" united, Poor Humanity snubbed and slighted.

Humour's new cuvée, extra-dry.

I-twaddley—high-dry-high-toned I!

Come and worship the pessimist "I"

For that's all right!

After I've taken the toffish Town,

A second edition, at Half-a-crown,