Punch (68.1875)

A RARA AVIS.

Jones. “Who is that Girl all the Men seem so anxious to be introduced to? ”
Brown. “0, that’s Miss Pvnke. Wonderful Woman, Sir!”

Jones. “What has she done?’’

Brown. “Never written a Novel, or contributed to a Magazine!”

PUNCH TO THE KING OP SIAM.

Fair greeting, Courteous Cousin mine. You are the King of Siam,
And Punchius Rex the mighty, monarch of Fleet Street I am.

No need, I’m sure, of further ceremonious introduction,

For Punch is doubtless known and read with rapture and instruc-
tion

As constantly in far Bangkok as ’tis in near Balmoral.

I (let us, Cousin, drop, pro. tem., the old Imperial plural.)

Bead with pleasure, whose expression cannot be too prononce,

That very friendly letter signed by Bhashakaraavongse.

(I hope, with all my heart, that I have spelled and scanned
precisely

The something prolix name of one who turns our tongue so nicely.)
Effulgency ! your proffer is enlightened as ’tis handsome,

And from the courteous Sovereign of a distant Eastern land, some
Who think themselves much nearer to the civilised meridian
Might take a profitable hint. ’Twould tax an Art Ovidian
lo sing the metamorphoses these demiurgic Sciences
Have wrought with all their wizard spells and wonderful ap-
pliances.

But Science, Cousin Siam, your true Cosmopolite is;

And wide as Nature in its sphere its broad benignant flight is,

And, like that often quoted “touch of Nature,” kins us truly
v/r1'01? ^ere i distant. Siam, as from there to farthest Thule.

Much sneered at for its prosiness, hut with its own Romance, it
Has just been watching warily Dame Yenus at her transit;

And is about to send a stoutly-armed but peaceful legion,
lo circumvent the icy guards of the circumpolar region.

Punch favours undertakings of this brave and blameless genus,
And, though he’s heard some hints that slippery Sol and tricksy
Venus

(As might have been expected) have been plotting to befog us,

And m a maze of merely bogus calculations hog us,

Yet, spite of solar shifts, or interlunar plots and pranks, it
Is plain that Science means to win at last. King Punchius
thanks it.

And now, by way, no doubt, of an agreeable variety
The pundits of our Royal Astronomical Society,

And other learned bodies, have made up their minds to follow
The little game that’s coming off ’twixt Dian and Apollo.

With Camera, and Spectroscope, and Foucault’s Siderostat,

They mean to keep an eye upon the point the pair have crossed at;
And solve the secrets,—stiffish stuff for long and learned papers,—
Of chromosphere and corona, of spectra, heads, and vapours.

Punch warmly wishes them good speed. And now, most courteous
Cousin

Of Siam, comes your amicable offer—worth a dozen
Palavers or State protocols, as genuine links to bind us
And put the bad old days of white exclusiveness behind us.

Punch promptly drinks your royal health in a stoup of right good
Stingo,

And though our people may not understand each other’s lingo
So well as we might wish perhaps, yet genuine love and liquor
Are of no land or lexicon. It makes the blood run quicker
To think that Saxons may drmk hael as far as far Chinese land,
With such a brick as you must be, Lord of the Siamese land!

Punch wishes his observatory (fixed so much farther west
Than Bangkok’s latitude) allowed himself to be your guest:

But he must keep his perch, although with sympathies sporadic,

For Nature’s Nobs (you ’ll understand), must not be too nomadic.

No doubt, in that particular, we are but brother yokesmen,

Yet be assured that Britons, through their very first of spokesmen,
Return you hearty thanks. Accept ? By Jove, they’d better do it
Or certain swells shall hear of it. Good De La Rue would rue it
If such a chance were slighted, and ’twould be a trifle comical
If asinine punctilio ruled in matters astronomical.

But Punch has not the slightest doubt the Royal men of Science
Will be but too delighted to remit a prompt compliance