Punch (54.1868)

250 PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [June 6, 1868.

AT THE HORSE-SHOW.—A PRIZE PAIR.

ROBINSON’S REVERIE.

My eyes make pictures when they’re shut
Beneath some bower’s shade ;

A tilted waggon in a rut,

A well, and nut brown maid.

And now they show a portrait fair,

So sweetly limn’d from life ;

With gentle glance and golden hair—

An eligible Wife.

Art looketh on her loveliness,

And lays his pencil down,

While Bachel weeps—can she do less ?
Enchantress of renown !

Whose roses conscious of deceit
Their abject state deplore ;

With cunning lilies, train’d to cheat,

All crushed for evermore !

In politics she plays no part,

“ No vote 1 need,” she says ;

The House that represents her heart,

My oratory sways.

Yet doth she read Hume, Hallam, Mill,
And Whately with delight;

Mv essays, too, on Time, Space, Will,
Equality and Right !

Severely though her temper’s tried
By desultory Man,

Across her brow no shadows glide,

My faults no breezes fan.

A few fat friends I met at Rome
Are welcome when they call,

And he who looks most like a gnome,

She flatters most of all.

A pony Phseton in the Park
She drives from two to three :

No bells conspiring tinkle !—mark
How self-contained is she.

The proud swart Prince with silver spur
Observes that peerless One,

And ducal hat3 are raised to her
Whose eyes are raised to none.

At Race, Assize, or County Ball,

She shiueth as a star ;

She smiles on captains stout or small,

And charms the briefless Bar.

To hounds she rides with eager men,

And laughs when others sigh :

But takes the stiffest fences when
No nervous youth is nigh.

Methinks in living form I see
My Beautiful ! mv bride !

How grateful then, I bend the knee,
Consenting to be tied.

My hookah mutely I resign,

My dog with wail of woe

Retires—then the tuneful Nine
In a procession slow.

Sometimes grim thoughts of age and gout
Invade my broken rest,

When slipper’d, lean, I’m wheeled about,
Still dreaming, still unblest.

And, oh, what grief will grave my cheek,
Ye doves that cozy coo !

If she, the faultless one I seek,

Should seek perfection too.

A Different Article.

Mr. “ John” Murray, of Albemarle Street, has warned the public
against a book announced by M a. “A.” Murray, as written by Henry
Hallam. When will the public learn the difference between “A”
Murray, of who knows where, and 'the ’ Murray, of Albemarle Street ?