Punch: Punch (60.1871)

34 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [January 28, 1871.

THE "NEC PLUS ULSTER" GREAT-COAT.

(intended for cold, but not muddy, weather.)

HER BAPTISM OF EIRE.

We saw her, the witching, the wanton, the winning,
In the flush of her music, her meats and her wine,
The Circe that gave such a glory to sinning,
That dalliance seemed duty, and evil, divine.
Such the spell of sweet eyes, and bright beautiful face,
Men swooned to behold them, and died to embrace.

We walked in her chambers, amidst a soft dimness
Of folds wreathed and woven and cunningly flung
To tame into touching and tender the grimness
That under that weird face's witchery clung :
And through the white veils came a tremulous glow,
Like the rose of the sunset through wind-winnowed snow.

And more bright for those clouds gathered artfully round her

Shone the light of her cheek and the lure of her eye,
Till we asked not whence came the allurement that crowned her,
But yearned for her kiss, though to kiss were to die.
All races and regions their worshippers gave,
And none but was fain to be some time her slave.

So she revelled and ruled, wiled, and wantoned, and won,

Like to her seen in Patmos in purple attired,
Deckt with gold and fair stones that shot light as the sun,
In her hand a gold cup, for their lips that desired,
Of all filthiness full, and a name on her brow,
That seemed fitting her then, but so seemeth not now.

For behold, o'er her borders the foeman has stormed,

And her guards set to meet him like straws swept away ;
And now at her gate his battalions have formed,
And close and more close draw their iron array:

Sure the white, wanton witch in her drap'ries must cower,
As the breakers of battle beat loud at her bower.

But lo, what a change in that face false and fair,
And those soft supple limbs, late in dalliance entwined !

She has torn off the rose-wreath that trailed in her hair,
She has knit up her loose locks that played in the wind ;
For her silks and her laces, hath clothed her in steel,
And from wanton grown warrior, from proud head to heel.

For her meats of the costly, her wines of the choice,

She eats of the coarse, and she drinks of the cheap :
The smooth limbs that wont in down beds to rejoice,
On the straw by the bivouac watch-fire can sleep ;
And her brow hath ta'en sternness, and hardness her hand,
And the lips that lisped love-songs sound words of command.

Nor the shot and the steel of the foeman alone

She has found—this soft wanton—endurance to face ;
With worse waste of the heart, than the shot's of the stone,
The slow tooth of Famine its way gnaws apace ;
And the warmth in her blood aiding famine to kill,
The winter Frost creeps with its death-dealing chill.

And at last with the Famine and Frost has come Fire,

On that head, erst so dainty, its baptism to pour,
Till her crown of proud towers topples down in the mire,
And death-shrieks are shrill through the crash and the roar.
Is't despair or defiance thus nerves her to stand,
Though shivered hilt-high is the sword in her hand ?

Bids her hold her bent brows still confronting the flame,

Whose hot hungry tongue licks her beautiful hair,
As if in its fires she would purge sin and shame,
Draw strength from starvation, defence from despair,
Till we ask in amazement and awe—Can it be ?
Is this Dalilah, Queen of Earth's Wantons, we see ?

Is this Amazon, shrunk, stricken, scathed, but still proud,
And so staunch in hard steel, the soft silken-robed dame,
That with wine of her witchcraft made drunken the crowd,
Till from men they waxed beasts, and thereof had no shame ?
Can War's fire so wickedness, wantonness slay,
That her foul shall grow fair, and her dross slough away ?