Punch (15.1848)

Punch Presenting his Fourteenth Volume to the Genius of his Country.

PUNCH'S BIRTHDAY
i.

Amid the crash of toppling crowns,

The crack of dynasties,
And thunder of bombarded towns,

Far booming o'er the seas,
While Europe with an earthquake-shock

Is reeling to and fro,
John Bull sits calmly on his rock,

Begirt with Ocean's flow,
Watching the storm with quiet survey,

He being safe ashore;
Aid whilst abroad all thing are topsy-turvy,
He sees his Queen upon her throne,
His Lords and Commons holding still their own,

And some of them, perhaps, a little more.

II.

Oh, pride ! our Institutions—
The old, the wise, the free—
In a world of revolutions
Still flourishing to see!
To view our own majestic native Oak,
Whilst other trees of Liberty decay,
Still whole and sound from stem to spray,
Not in the least inclined to droop;

Indeed, without a joke,
This sight should make each Briton cock-a-hoop !

in.

But of our Constitution
There's one peculiar boast,

Its finest Institution—
That is to say, almost—

With warmest exultation,

And self-congratulation,
With admiration utterly unbounded,

Should every mother's son
Regard that Institution, founded

In Eighteen Forty-one!

ODE TO HIMSELF.

Yes, Punch, for ever vernal,
By strife and storms unshaken,

Thy celebrated Journal
The proudest feelings must awaken

In every patriotic breast

That throbs beneath a British vest.

iv.

Lo, Punch, whose Fifteenth Volume now appears,
Begins the eighth of his immortal years ;
Exhaustless his outpourings as the sea,
And also quite as shiny,
With laughs innumerable, as the " briny."
Thus iEscHYLUS, you know,
Describes the Ocean's glow,
When its countless ripples glitter
In a universal titter,
A tremendous Ha, ha, he !
Ho, ho, ho!

v.

This is the happy day of Punch's birth,
And that is why he crows,
And his own trumpet blows

In plenitude of mirth.
He makes his fresh appearance,
Intent, with perseverance,
To follow out the good Horatian rule

With which he first began:
That is, in season still to play the fool.

Which to do well,
And wear with decent grace the cap and bell,

Takes a wise man.
Thus, being now septennial,
Punch trusts to be perennial;
To him Oblivion's tiunk and dusty shelf

Suggest no fears.
He only hopes his readers—like himself—
May live a thousand years.

Vol. 15.