Punch (68.1875)

2

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[January 2, 1875.

THE NEW YEAR’S NURSES.

.JAP

Ah, safe wert thou from sorrow’s
canker-worm,

Young- Seventy-Five, had Fate as-
signed thy lot,

At thy first step into life’s wintry
storm,

To feel the wise support and pressure
warm

Of Punch's arms about thy baby
form,

New-wakened on a world that
knows thee not.

*

But rougher nurses thy young life
environ,

If through the clouds thy horo-
scope I catch—

Bismarck, who makes his pap of
blood and iron,

And Papa Pius, who all schools
throws mire on,

Except that old one, that piled
Smithfield’s fire on,

Ere to its faggots Bonner laid the
match.

So nursed in Pantomimes poor babes are seen
By reckless Clown and ancient Pantaloon-
Crammed with strange pap, with blacking-brush scrubbed
clean,

Chucked to and fro, their nurses’ hands between,

And sat upon, if restless they have been
Under hot poker, scrubbing-brush, or spoon.

While Gladstone, as Policeman, dark and dry,

Pros, who wants the babe, taps on the shoulder ;

Swears, though Infallibility defy,

None of your Roman Doctors shall come nigh,

The babe to drug and dose and stupify,

And keep from growing wiser as he’s older.

As Harlequin to this Clown and Pantaloon,

France shows in closely-fitting mask and motley :
Spangled and partycoloured, cap to shoon,

In transformations changeful as the moon,

Wound up by a strait-waistcoat, late or soon—

Natural end of flip-flaps flung too hotly.

Tattered and battered, brainless as she’s bold,

Spain light-heeled Columbine may fitly play.
Leering coquette ’neath her mantilla’s fold,

Who takes her geese for swans, her brass for gold,
And deems Madrid Earth’s central nave doth hold—
Knaves enough she does hold, spelt with a K.

And yet rough Force, infallible Imbecility,

Mad Change, and Anarchy more frantic still,

All vail their crests, and own their inability _

To stand against the Power that in tranquillity
Bows Present, Past, and Future to humility,

’Neath the Dark Wisdom, and the Unseen Will.

Cockney Furrin and ’Ome Keview.

Horgustus. Rather ’ardof hold Bismarck to be down on Harnim,
hain’t it P

’Enery. Yes, I’m sorry for old ’Arry Harnim. I wonder if
Bismarck ’ll hindorse ’is committal with “No Christmas Pare.
Carden’d ha’ dun it if he’d a cot the poor beggar.