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قراءة كتاب Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 107, August 11, 1894
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
اللغة: English
Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 107, August 11, 1894
الصفحة رقم: 2
class="indent">Step Eight and Last.—Having lost everything, the nation returns with a sigh of relief to old-fashioned barbarism.
THE TRIUMPH OF CIVILISATION!
A HINT TO THE POSTAL AUTHORITIES.
The Employment of Good-looking and Attractive Young Men in clearing the Letter-Boxes undoubtedly results in frequent Detention of the Mails.
EASTWARD HO!
"Oh East is East, and West is West," says strenuous Rudyard Kipling, And what has the West taught to the East, save the science of war, and tippling? To ram, and to torpedo, and to drain Drink's poisoned flagons? And Civilisation sees her work in—armour-plated Dragons! The saurians of primeval slime they fought with tooth and claw, And Sho-ki's dragon, though possessed of wondrous powers of jaw, And Miochin's scaly monster, whereat Sho-ki's pluck might melt, And the dragon speared by stout St. George in the bold cartoons of Skelt,— These were but simple monsters, like the giants slain by Jack, But your dragon cased in armour-plate with turrets on his back, And a charged torpedo twisted in his huge and horrid tail. Is a thing to stagger Science, and to make poor Peace turn pale!
Yes, East is East, and West is West; but the West looks on the East, And sees the bold Jap summoning to War's wild raven-feast The saffron-faced Celestial; and the game they're going to play (With a touch of Eastern goriness) in the wicked Western way. For the yellow-man has borrowed from the white-man all that's bad, From shoddy and fire-water, to the costly Ironclad. He will not have our Bibles, but he welcomes our Big Guns, And he blends with the wild savagery of Vandals, Goths or Huns, The scientific slaughter of the Blood-and-Iron Teuton!— A sight that Civilisation would right willingly be mute on. But these armour-plated dragons that infest the Yellow Sea Are worse than the Norse "Dragons" whose black raven flag flew free O'er fiord and ocean-furrow in the valorous Viking days. Heathen Chinee and Pagan Jap have learned our Western ways Of multitudinous bloodshed; every slaughtering appliance, Devices of death-dealing skill, and deviltries of Science Strengthen the stealthy Mongol and the sanguinary Turk; And Civilisation stands, and stares, and cries, "Is this my work?"
Mem. by a Muddled One.
"Poems in Prose" seem all the go. They're bad enough, but worse The dreary hotch-potch we all know Too sadly;—prose in verse!
OLD THREE-VOL.
There rose two Book-Kings in the West, Two Kings both great and high; And they have sworn a solemn oath Good old Three-Vol. shall die.
They took a pen and wrote him down, Piled sins upon his head; And they have sworn a solemn oath Good old Three-Vol. is dead.
But when "the Season" comes once more, And folks for fiction call, Old Three-Vol. may rise up again, And sore surprise them all!
REMNANTS.
(A Pindaric Fragment.)
In the young season's prime Yon remnant felt its major portion reft, And waited for the surplus time Ingloriously left.
For it no glories of the lawn, No whirling in the valse that greets the dawn, No record in the fleeting roll of fame That gives the wearer's name, And tells a waiting world what gown she wore; While that which went before No cheaply-sober destiny has found But graced fair Fashion's ground, Where Pleasure, gaily deck'd, Within the fancied circle of select, Watches the Polo cavalry at war, The victim pigeons tumbled in their gore, The rival Blues at Lord's, the racing steeds On Ascot's piney meads, Or where luxuriant Goodwood's massy trees Murmur to no common breeze, And see afar the glint of England's summer seas.
Impute no fault, ye proud, nor grandeur mock, If frugal Elegance, discreet and fair, The aftermath of lavish Fashion reap, And, having waited long with nought to wear, Get the same goods, though late, and get them cheap. Next year the daintiest gowns by lawn and lock May haply be the fruit of surplus summer stock.
Pope for the Emancipated Sex.—"The understudy of mankind is woman."
LYRE AND LANCET.
(A Story in Scenes.)
PART VI.—ROUND PEGS IN SQUARE HOLES.
Scene IX.—The Entrance Hall at Wyvern.
"What name, if you please, Sir?"
Tredwell (to Lady Cantire). This way, if