'Poor fellows!' we remark. 'Poor things!'
'All crushed to little bits!'
Then go to Bunty Pulls the Strings,
Have supper at the Ritz,
And never even think again
Of land-slides in the State of Maine!
But when the paper we take in
Describes how Mr. Jones
Has slipped on a banana-skin
And broken sev'ral bones,
'Good Heavens! What a world!' we shout;
'Disasters never cease!'
'What is the Government about?'
'And where are the Police?'
Distraught by such appalling news
All creature comforts we refuse!
Though plagues exterminate the Lapp,
And famines ravage Spain,
They move us not like some mishap
To a suburban train.
Each foreign tale of fire or flood,
How trumpery it grows
Beside a broken collar-stud,
A smut upon the nose!
For Charity (Alas! how true!)
Begins At Home—and ends there, too!
'RAG-TIME'
At dawn, beneath my casement,
Scrubbing the area stairs,
The boot-boy in the basement
Is whistling rag-time airs.
At breakfast, while I'm eating,
A German band outside
With unction keeps repeating
The latest 'Wedding Glide.'
Where'er I go, whate'er I do,
I can't escape from 'Hitchykoo'!
Pursued, as by a pixy,
By each infectious air,
I 'Want to be in Dixie'
When ev'rybody's there!
Though 'Honolulu-looing'
I've done my best to shun,
What 'Ev'rybody's Doing'
I cannot leave undone!
The subtle spell I can't withstand
Of 'Alexander's Rag-Time Band'!
Like ancient hosts of Midian,
I kneel, enslaved and tame,
Before a modern Gideon,
And Melville is his name!
He grips me without pity,
He binds me with a thong
Of contrapuntal ditty,
Of syncopated song!
And in his sweet, seductive strains
I hear the rattle of my chains!
So, when you next behold me
Perform a Turkey-trot,
In fashion which (they've told me)
Makes chaperones feel hot;
Or with a strict adherence
To rules of Bunny-hug,
Combine the ape's appearance
With manners of the Thug,
I beg you won't find fault with me,
But lay the blame on Melville G.! |
'THE PIPES'
The voice of the violoncello
Brings peace and enjoyment to some,
The cornet appeals to one fellow,
Another enjoys a big drum;
The horn and the bugle, of melody frugal,
A third deems agreeably stirring,
The twang of the zither, the piccolo's twitter,
A fourth is preferring;
But none who attains to the years known as riper
Can fail to be moved by the pipes of the Piper!
O Piper, processioning proudly
Round tables where men sit at meat,
Performing your pibrochs so loudly
That no human voice can compete,
What memories tender your dirges engender!
Your wind-bag successfully squeezing,
You stir the affections and wake recollections,
Both painful and pleasing,
That soothe (like a poultice) or sting (like a viper)
The hearts that respond to the pipes of the Piper!
O Piper, persistently plodding
At dawn round some castle in Skye,
Where guests (with their ears full of wadding)
On couches of agony lie,
No thrush in the thicket, no frog, and no cricket,
No creature on land or in ocean,
Expressing its passion in musical fashion,
Can rouse such emotion
As sets the most soulless of Sassenachs wiping
The tears from his eyes at the sound of your piping!
Though many may term you infestive,
Discordant, or dull, as they please,
Or say that your skirls are suggestive
Of pigs being bitten by bees;
There's nought so exciting, for marching or fighting,
As sounds that your chanter produces;
No strains so entrancing, for dining, or dancing,
Or similar uses!
In peace or in war, for civilian or 'sniper,'
There's nothing on earth like the pipes of the Piper! |
MODERN DANCING
When the Waltz was first invented,
Grandmamma was much upset;
Long she mourned, and loud lamented,
Staid Quadrille and Minuet.
In her eyes (a bit oldfashioned)
Waltzing called for condemnation,
As a somewhat too empassioned
Form of social relaxation!
Grandma, with averted head,
Swept her daughters home to bed!
When the practice of 'reversing'
Revolutionised the dance,
Dear Mamma was heard aspersing
Fashions introduced from France.
With invectives harsh and stinging
She abused those youthful dancers
Who were over fond of 'swinging'
Partners in the Kitchen Lancers;
Ragging, as a ballroom sport,
Made Mamma get up and snort!
Now, when Bunny-hugging habits
Elevate maternal hairs,
When our daughters act like rabbits,
And our sons behave like bears;
When the modern ballroom gang goes
Through the complicated mazes
Of those pseudo-Spanish Tangoes
(Last of corybantic crazes!),
We can only gaze aghast,
Like our forbears in the past!
But although each he (or she) grows
More and more inclined to romp,
Emulating am'rous negroes
In some Mississippi swamp,
Recollect, when Gossip chatters,
Though the best hotels taboo it,
'Tisn't what we dance that matters,
But the way in which we do it!
Chaperones may look askance:
Honi soit qui mal y—dance! |
THE PUBLIC INTEREST
