Punch: Punch (87.1884)

August 16, 1884.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

81

THE POLITICAL TAM G’SHANTER.

Adapted, Fragmentarily, prom Burns. Application—obvious.

*****

No man can tether time or tide,

And he who holds the reins must ride ;

And such a night Weg takes the road in
As seldom rider was abroad in.

With Boreas at his fullest blast,

And Eurus whistling tierce and fast,

There was a shindy never fellowed.

Loud, deep, and long they raved and bellowed.
That night of nights a Scot might say
The Deil (of Hatfield) was to pay.

Well mounted on his mare was Weg,

(A stouter never lifted leg,)

Through Irish-bog-like mud and mire,
Wartonian wind, and Woodcock fire,

Fought iron frame and shrewd head on it.
Weg, holding fast his good Scots bonnet,
Looked sharp around with prudent care,

Lest bogies take him unaware,

Or watchful foemen “ wipe his eye ”

With that confounded thing, a “ cry.”

Bv this time he was cross the ford
(Where he was very nearly floored),

And past the bog so dark and dank
Where Snobdom’s “ Ch arlie ” sprawled and
sank,

And through the sand-pit, Egypt-dark,
Where war-dogs seemed to lurk and bark ;
And the thorn-thicket, wild and wide,

Where one had need he Argus-eyed.

Before him doom appears at Hood,
liedoubling storm roars through the wood ;
Tongued lightnings flash from pole to pole,
And vocal thunders fiercely roll.

*****

But there was pluck inWEG’s shrewd noddle,
He cared no more for threats than twaddle.
His mare, though, was a hit astonished,

Until, by hand and heel admonished,

She ventured forward on the light,

And eh! Weg saw a wondrous sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance,

Egyptian whirls, and jigs from France ;
Drum-thumpings loud, and life-like squeals,
Put life and mettle in their heels.

High on a seat, with flaming eyes,

There sat old Nick in human guise ;
Mastiff-like, stern, black, grim and large ;
To set the measures was his charge.

He pitched the pipes, and made them skirl,
Till the wild troop seemed all a-whirl.

Coffins stood round like open presses,

And show’d dead Bills in foolscap dresses,
And by some dark, prophetic sleight
Each held a boding spectral light,

By which our wary Weg was able
To spy, spread out upon a table,
Late-murdered measures ; cord or knife
Had robbed the innocents of life.

A proud Peer’s garter one had strangled,
And many more were maimed and mangled ;
In short the scene was simply awful,

And Weg considered quite unlawful#
*****

But Weg knew what was what right well,
And one young witch there bore the hell.

One late enlisted in the rout

(At Woodstock known and thereabout)

At many a measure she had shot,

And many a plan had sent to pot;

Made many a plucky wight feel queer,

And shook e’en her own side with fear.

Her “ cutty sark ” of true-blue yarn,

Which, up to now, the witch had worn,

In cut and tit was scant and strange.

Some thought she hankered for a change,
And that ’twas sad her youth’s bright riches
Should e’er have graced a dance of witches.

But here my muse must faster flutter,

’Tis scarce within her power to utter

How Rannie leapt, and twirled, and Hung
(A supple jade she was and young),

And how Weg stood like one bewitched,

How his eyes gleamed, how his month
twitched.

Even Satan glowered as though in pain,

And puffed and blew with might and main,
Till with one caper and another,

No longer Weg his words could smother.

But roars out, “Well danced, Cutty Sark ! ”
AVhen in a moment all was dark;

And scarce his mare and he had rallied
When out the yelling legion sallied.

As bees buzz round a sugar-tub,

Or workmen round an opening “ pub,”

As M.P.’s rush to chase the grouse
When Prorogation clears the House,

So the mare runs, the witches follow
With many an eldritch shriek and hollow.

Ah, Weg! ah, Weg! they’re nearing,
nearing,

Like hounds on trail of a red-herring.
Midlothian, Weg, awaits thy coming ;

They ’ll think yon ’re lost, dear Weg, or
humming.

Now, ride thy very hardest, Weg !

If the bridge key-stane feels her leg,

Thy mare at them her tail may toss,—

That running stream they cannot cross.

But ere the key-stone she could make,

The deuce a tail had she to shake,

For Nickie, far before the rest,

Hard on that nag so nimble prest,

And liew at Weg with hope to settle ;

But little knew he that mare’s mettle.

One spring brought Weg off safe and hale,
But left behind her own grey tail;

For with Nice’s pull and the mare’s jump,
Weg’s nag was left with ne’er a stump !
*****

TARE WELL TO

The London Season ’s at an end
Too soon he sure for me,

I’ve invitations from each friend
By mount and rill and sea. •
I’ve danced until the morning
came,

And thanked my lucky stars.
My cheeks could stand the sunrise
flame,

Through all the window-bars.

I’ve danced and flirted with the
best,

The cream of London Town,
Enjoyed the Healtheries with zest,
And donned a Gloodwood gown.

I ’■ve seen the pictures and the plays,
At Greenwich dined with dad ;

I’ve learnt the last artistic craze,
And know the newest “ fad.”

I’ve met the people that one meets
A hundred times or more,

I’ve tasted all the Season’s sweets,
The bon-bons as before.

I’ve doue what every girl must do,
And let my fancy range,

And now, clear Punch, ’twixt me
and you,

I do so want a change.

I’m tired of Lord Macmasher’s
vows,

And Captain Blank ’s a bore,
And yet they meet me both at
Cowes,

And Scheveningen shore.

THE SEASON.

I can’t outstrip them in the
race,

At Yenice or at Rome,

Or Pontresina, each man’s face
Is what I knew at home.

I hie me to a country house,

On Caledonian hill,

The men who come to slaughter
grouse

Are just the old crowd still.

The women are the friends I
met

At dinner and at hall,

Ah, me ! if I could but forget
The faces of them all!

Though life in London has been
sweet,

As it will be once more,

I ’in like a policeman on his
beat,

A slave chained to the oar.
Where’er I go against my will,
There echoes London strife ;

No new sensations come to fill,
The void within my life.

And what to me are waving trees,
Fair fiords or mountain streams ?
E’en Nature has no power to
please

Mid fashionable dreams.

Oh. would I were a mountain maid,
My dress a cotton gown !
Although next Season I’m afraid
My sighs would be for Town.

A PERFECT PARADISE.

By accounts from Canada, it appears that the “Salvationists”
have undergone so much tribulation in the Dominion at the hands of
the police, that it has moved them to add the following most uncha-
ritable stave to their psalmody :—•

“ There ’ll be no policemen there;

There ’ll be no policemen there ;

In the mansions above,

Where all is love ;

There ’ll be no policemen there.”

As long as there are mansions and areas, there will be policemen.
But, it may be presumed, there will be no uproarious shouting,
singing, beating of drums, blowing of trumpets, marching in
irritative processions, and creating disturbances in the public streets.
Nor will there he pickpockets, burglars, garotters, or other thieves,
rogues, and vagabonds to join, with jubilation, in a song of which
the refrain would then be modified to “ There are no policemen here! ”

Ms. D. Anderson’s New Book, Scenes in the Commons (Kegan
Paul & Co., publishers), is both interesting and amusing. By the
way, the Author attributes to the whim or ignorance of caricaturists
the placing of a glass in Mr. Bright’s eye. We don’t quite appreciate
the off-hand reference to “caricaturists,” hut Mr. Punch's “Car-
toonist,” Mr. Tenniel,—for we now speak of “the Cartoons of
Pennies and the Cartoons of Raphael, only, as Mr. James Whistler
would observe, “ Why drag in Raphael our Mr. Tenniel, we
say, started John Bright with a single eye-glass, there being no
man more single-eyed than “ Honest John,” and the public won't
accept him pictorially without it. Didn’t Mr. Punch make Palmer-
ston his own, with a straw in his mouth ? In Mr. Punch's Gallery
hadn’t Colonel Sibthorpe short trousers, and Lord Brougham inva-
riably plaid ones ? Why, certainly ; and a celebrity must live up to
Mr. Punch's portrait of him if he would insure popular recognition
wherever he goes. Mr. Punch has recently made a concession ; he has
reduced Mr. Gladstone’s collars—not in number,_ but size; though
occasionally we may give an extra inch, when he is very choleric.