PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
Volume 108, April 13, 1895
edited by Sir Francis Burnand

Ye countless stars, both great and small,

The poetic sky who spangle,

Not one of you, that I recall,

Has hymned the sweet triangle!

With lyre and lute too long, too much,

Ye've thrid love's mazy tangle,

Yet unresponsive to your touch

Have left the sweet triangle.

And so the Muse commissions me

A lay to newly fangle—

I play the instrument, you see—

In praise of my triangle.

No tambourine, no minstrel bones

Give forth what Hilda Wangel

Would call such "frightfully thrilling" tones

As those of my triangle.

No self-respecting band may try

To play—'twould simply mangle—

Good music, unassisted by

The silver-tongued triangle.

In vain does Strephon with a lute

Round Phyllis always dangle;

She'd have him, if he urged his suit

With passionate triangle.

Full brave may bray the loud trombone,

Full sweet the cymbals jangle,

The bagpipes till they burst may drone,

So I have my triangle.

The stately cold piano may

All depth of feeling strangle;

To rouse deep feeling I essay,

Nor fail, on my triangle!

O'er rival claims of violin

And 'cello some may wrangle—

For pure expression nothing's in

The hunt with my triangle.

The diamond bracelet must exceed

In worth the silver bangle—

No instrument, string, wind, or reed,

Compares with my triangle!

Griffin, who benignly beamest

(So to speak) upon the Strand,

To the rustic eye thou seemest

Quite superlatively grand.

Griffin, grim and grimy Griffin,

Few, Joe tells me, will agree

With my artless numbers, if in

Undiluted praise of thee.

Critics, so he says, by dozens

Swear thou couldst not well be worse,

Yet from one poor country cousin's

Pen accept a tribute verse.

Some of London's statues now are

Fêted richly once a year;

Some—it seems a shame, I vow—are

Fated to oblivion there.

Once a year a primrose bower

Draws the folks around for miles,

Dizzy blossoms into flower,

Almost into "wreathèd smiles."

Once a year by all the town o'er-

-whelmed in bays is Gordon seen,

Countless wreaths recording "Brown (or

Jones) thus keeps thy memory green."

Once a year King Charles's statue

Paragraphs jocose invites,

Wreathed with flowers by infatu-

-ated modern Jacobites.

Thus their substance people waste on

This queer decorative fit—

Wreaths are sometimes even placed on

Mere nonentities like Pitt.

But—I cannot think what Joe meant—!

No one—so he said to me—

In his most expansive moment

E'er has twined a wreath for thee!

So I cast—in no derision—

From my 'bus-top garden-seat

These few violets, with precision,

At what I must call thy feet.

'Tis not that thy mien is stately,

'Tis not that thy grace is rare,

'Tis not that I care so greatly

For thy quaint heraldic air;

But contemptuous men neglect thee,

Load thee with invective strange,

So with violets I have decked thee,

And with verses, as a change.

Nilus (referring to Parisian Press).

But—won't it make our French friends furious?

Mr. Bull.                      Gammon!

Nilus. Are you, then, the new Oracle of Ammon?

Mr. Bull. Well, Alexander claimed the god his sire.