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Read Ebook: Punch or the London Charivari Vol. 108 June 15th 1895 by Various Burnand F C Francis Cowley Editor
Font size: Background color: Text color: Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev PageEbook has 74 lines and 12551 words, and 2 pagesTHE TUG OF WARRE. A NOCTURNE IN NOODLEDOM. The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the brow of night, Like a crape-mask drifting downward From a burglar in his flight. I see the lights of "the village" Gleam through the evening mist, And a feeling of dryness comes o'er me, And a tiddley I can't resist. A feeling of blueness, and longing For a spree, and another drain; It resembles sorrow only As gooseberry does champagne. Come, tip me some snappy poem, Some iky and rorty lay, That shall banish this chippy feeling, And drive dull care away. Not from the slow old stodges, Not from the smugs sublime, Who hadn't a notion of patter, And were slaves to tune and time: For, like chunks of WAGNER'S music, They worrying thoughts suggest, Dull duty, and dry endeavour, And to-night I long for rest. Tip a stave from some Lion Comique, Whose songs are snide and smart, And who makes you roar, like ROBERTS, Till tears from your optics start. Who, without thought or labour, And "on his own," with ease, Can whack out the ripping chorus Of music-hall melodies. Such songs have power to quicken The pulse that beats low with care; And come like the "Benedictine" That follows the bill-of-fare. So pick from the cad, or the coster, Some patter--slang for choice; And lend to the rhymes of the Comique The tones of a stentor voice. And our feet shall thump tune to the music, And the bills that I cannot pay Shall be folded up, like my brolly, And as carefully put away. THE GOOSE AND THE EAGLE. A Goose that had miss-spent a long life, and, in addition to being old and ugly, was of a sour, ill-natured disposition, in despair of rendering herself any longer agreeable to her male acquaintances, conceived the desperate design of emancipating her female friends. "It is intolerable," she declared to a large assemblage of the latter who flocked together directly the news of her design was noised abroad, "it is intolerable that, whilst all the good things of this life are reserved for the exclusive use and enjoyment of our male tyrants, we poor female creatures should be put off with feeble bodies and dowdy, unattractive plumage. I will go immediately to the King of Birds and demand the instant redress of these grievances under pain of my serious displeasure." Scarcely had the Goose received the thanks of her audience for this valiant speech, when an Eagle, which chanced to be soaring at that moment in the heavens above them, and was attracted by the clamour that reached him, dropped suddenly to the earth in order to discover the cause of it; to whom the Goose, so soon as she was sufficiently recovered of her fears, humbly addressed her complaint. "Foolish bird!" exclaimed the Eagle, when the Goose had made an end of her complainings, "know you not that what is fixed by Nature cannot possibly be altered by birds; and that if your sex have weaker bodies and a less attractive plumage than belong to us of the male gender, it is because Nature wills it so, and must be obeyed? Learn to be content with what you have, and cease envying those to whom Nature has been more prodigal of certain favours than she has been to you. Remember, also, foolish bird! that strength of mind is not the same thing with strength of body, and that though you may possess the one and pretend to despise the other, yet is Might the foundation of nearly all Right in the animal world, and must remain so because Nature will have it so and must be obeyed." ANOTHER TITLE!! SUPPLEMENTAL GAZETTE OF BIRTHDAY HONOURS.--DR. W. G. GRACE to be Cricket-Field-Marshal. "AS SIMPLE AS ITALIAN." Transcriber's Note Sundry damages or missing punctuation has been repaired. Page 277: 'Christain' corrected to 'Christian'. "". Page 282: 'Plantaganet' retained: sometimes appears as an alternative spelling of 'Plantagenet'. Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page |
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