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قراءة كتاب Punch, or the London Charivari, November 4th 1893
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
whitest dress more white,
Where whitest thought must fail.
Thin arms, with dimpled shadows here and there,
The curl'd luxuriance of your soft, dark hair
Its own bewitching wreath,
And perfect mouth that shows, in smiles too rare,
The radiant little teeth.
You cannot live on dances and delights,
Or fêtes by day and dance-music by nights.
Time foots it fleeter far
Than all the surging crowd your beauty smites
Like some coruscant star.
The ruthless social dragon will not spare
Your sweet girl nature, withering in the glare,
Or peeping out by stealth.
Wealth's prize is beauty, and to make all fair,
Beauty's desire is wealth.
I cannot keep a carriage for you, dear;
No horses on three hundred pounds a year
My lacking stables grace.
Yet the swift Hansom to the whistle clear
Will always speed apace.
I cannot give you wines of vintage rare,
There is no room for them beneath the stair
Which is my cellar's space.
Yet with Duke Humphrey we could often fare
With more than ducal grace.
Ah, loves, like books, are fated from the first,
One gets no cup of water for the thirst
The whole stream would not slake;
Another dims with tears the springs that burst
To sunshine for his sake.
When this vain fervour sadly sobers down,
I'll love you still, white maid, with eyes so brown
And voice so passing sweet,
And haply with Apollo's laurel crown
My love's foredoomed defeat.
WHEN THE "CAT"'S AWAY!
Air—"The Sergeant's Song."
When the "Cat" is not engaged in its employment—
Right employment,
Of laying its nine tails on brutal backs—
Brutal backs,
Street gangs of roughs are free to find employment—
Bad employment,
In beleaguering the cit's returning tracks—
Homeward tracks.
Our feelings we with difficulty smother—!
'Culty smother,
At finding ruffian hordes at rowdy "fun"—
Rowdy fun.
Taking one consideration with another—
With another,
One feels that something stringent should be done—
Promptly done!
There's the pistol-bearing burglar boldly burgling—
Boldly burgling,
There's the female fiend engaged in cruel crime—
Cruel crime.
There's the bashed, half-throttled traveller lying gurgling—
Faintly gurgling,
And the "Cat" is lying idle all the time—
All the time.
There's the brutal bully kicking wife or mother—
Wife or mother,
The unnatural father torturing his son—
Childish son!
Ah, take one consideration with another—
With another,
It's surely time that something stern were done—
Quickly done!
When the "Cat" was laid about the brute garrotter—
Cur garrotter,
He soon found it inadvisable to choke—
'Ble to choke.
And the lout who of street-outrage is a plotter—
Callous plotter,
Would not deem the nine-tailed lash a little joke—
Pleasant joke.
The woman-beating brute would hardly smother—
Scarcely smother,
His howlings when the lash was well laid on—
Well laid on.
So, take one consideration with another—
With another,
The "Cat" should once again be called upon—
Called upon.
The "corner-boys," and larrikins, and suchlike—
Louts and suchlike,
Who rove the streets at night in rowdy gangs—
Robber-gangs,
The tingling o' the nine tails might not much like—
Would not much like,
But that need not stir sentimental pangs—
Maudlin pangs.
"Gang-boy" to brute Garrotter is just brother—
Simply brother.
The "Cat" away such vermin prowl—for "fun"—
Savage fun!
Yes, take one consideration with another—
With another,
The "Cat" should wake again, says Punch for one—
Punch for one!
The policeman seems unequal to the job—
Toughish job.
The constabulary fails to quell the mob—
Rowdy mob.
So, as, very plainly, something must be done—
Promptly done,
The suggestion of the "Cat"'s a happy one—
Happy one!
[And Mr. Punch, with picture and poem (grimly earnest, though of Gilbertian tone) urges its application energetically home, upon the powers that be.
AGRICULTURAL MANNERS.
Scene—Hounds running across Land occupied by Non-sporting Tenant.
Sportswoman. "Now, my Boy, open the Gate, please, and let me through."
Young Hodge. "My Orthers is—'Jim, you oppens that there Gāate for no man!' And ar'm denged if ar dis for a Woman!"
NOTE BY OUR OWN PHILOSOPHER.
The breakfast-eating practical joker, who can be credited with the humorous invention of placing the shell of an egg (the edible contents of which he has previously extracted and swallowed) inverted in an egg-cup, so as to deceive the first hungry person arriving late into fancying that the others have considerately deprived themselves in order that he may not be without his favourite delicacy, this originator, I say, was decidedly a genius. His work after hundreds, nay, thousands of years, remains, fresh as is the new laid egg itself! After being used a million billion times, it gives now the same pleasure as ever it did when it first issued from the brain of its brilliant creator! Such a practical joke as this is "not for an age, but for all time," until there shall be no longer left a hen to lay an egg, or, if there be an egg left by the expiring hen, there shall be no longer a person remaining to eat the egg left by the egg-spiring hen; or, if the person and the egg be there, the last man and the last egg, there shall be no ten minutes allowed for