Punch: Punch (96.1889)

May 18, 1889.]

PUNCH, OK, THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

241

HINTS FOR THE PARK.

If your Hack is in rather Light Condition, it’s advisable to use a Breast-plate.

SUBURBAN LOVE-SONG.

The blacks float down with a lazy grace,

Hey, how the twirtle-hirds twitter !

And softly settle on hands and face;

And the shards in the rockery glitter.

The boughs are black and the buds are green—
Hey, how the twitter-birds twirtle!

And Cicely over the trellis-screen
Is bleaching her summer kirtle.

The mustard and cress (can they growwapart—
Those twin-souls, cress and mustard ?)

Are springing apace ; they have made such a
start

That the pattern is rather fluster’d:

For I made a device in the moist dark mould,
In the shape of A’s and S’s,

In capital letters, firm and bold,

I sow’d my mustard and cresses.

And I traced a heart and a true-love knot
In a geometrical pattern,

And it seems to have run to I can’t tell what,
For Flora has proved a slattern.

Or the sparrows, whose chirpings at daybreak
shrill,

Like the voice of a giant Cicala,

Of most of the letters have had their will,

In a vegetarian gala.

Here comes no nymph where the blue waves
lisp

On the white sands’ gleaming level,

Where the sharp light strikes on the laurel
crisp,

And flowers in the cool shade revel.

But the garden shrubs are as fair to me
As pine and arbutus and myrtle
That grow by the shores of the Grecian sea,
Where deathless nightingales twirtle.

And the little house, with its suites complete,
And the manifold anti-macassar,

And the chalet cage, whence he greets the
Meat puellce passer— [street—

Are fairer than'aught that the sun is above
In the world as much as I’ve seen of it;
For the little house is the realm of love,

And my sweet little girl is the queen of it.

OUR BOOKING-OEEICE.

The Figaro Exposition (English Edition
and therefore why not “ Exhibition ? ”) ought
to have a valuable collection, judging from the
first part just published. The illustrations
are charming, and there are several cuts of
the Eiffel Tower, the one showing the top-
light being curiously effective. The “Second
Storey ” of the Eiffel is, apparently, a very
popular storey, as it is crowded.

The latest number of Messrs. Valery and
Engel’s Our Celebrities, the autobiography of
Professor Huxley being unusually sprightly.
The likeness of Ellen Terry is as unlike any
other one of her as she herself is unlike any-
body else. I haven’t made up my mind to
being pleased with it. However, there she
is between Professor Huxley, who comes first,
and Henry Irving, who is last, but not least,
attending to neither, reading a book, and
apparently ignoring the Beal on one side and
the Ideal on t ’other.

Woman's Suffrage and National Danger,
is a work that should have the attention of
all those who look forward to a House of
Ladies, and long for the time when M.P.’ s
in petticoats will rule the Nation. The author
says:—“ Since the time of Adam, when manly
wisdom has been put aside to please the weaker
vessel, and the stronger has renounced his
rights in gentle dalliance with the fair, has
aught but disaster and decline ensued?”

The writer of these words, Mr. Heber L.
Hart, is _ a bold man. If any of the more
strong-minded of the Weaker Vessels come
across him, it would not surprise us to find
across him, it would not surprise us to find ‘ ‘ the
Hart bowed down through weight of woe.”

Ho one, whatever may be his political
opinions, will fail to thoroughly enjoy The
Green above the Red, by Mr. C. L. Graves,
The author has a singular facility for versi-
fication. The rollicking humour and lilt of
his songs, which was so conspicuous in the
Blarney Ballads, is a special characteristic of
his latest volume. Mr. Graves, while his
arrow is sharp, never forgets the gay feather
that decorates the shaft. The volume con-
tains some admirable pictures by Mr. Linley
Sahbourne, who further lends his aid in the
production of a very humorous cover.

A False Scent, hath a pleasant savour.
Mrs. Alexander keeps her secret almost up
to the last page, and thus the interest is well
sustained till the close of the story. What
the secret is, it would be scarcely fair to
divulge. Cleverly and brightly written say
The Baron de Book-Worms & Co.

FATHEB DAMIEN.

The Martyr of Molokai.

Gone from long agony to great reward,

At last, good priest! Humanity should hoard
Such memories as its richest, rarest wealth.
The enemy who crept with loathsome stealth
On thy soul-fortress found no faltering there.
What words avail to praise thee, who couldst
dare [calm,

Death’s deadliest sap with long-enduring
And in the midst of horror breathe the balm
Of high heroic sympathy around ?

Farewell, great soul; thy grave is holy ground!
He glorified the lazar-house whose breast
Defied the fair Pacific’s loathly pest.