Punch (102.1892)

January 9, 1892.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

13

ON A NEW YEARLING.

(Second TVecl:)

My fire was low; my bills were high;

My sip of punch was in its ladle ;
The clarion chimes were in the sky ;

The nascent year was in its cradle.

"Who does his master's will with grace,
And hurries meekly where he sent is ?

And, when he grows apace, what
blend

Of genius, chivalry and daring,
What virtues might our little friend
Display to brighten souls despairing ?
What quiet charities unknown.

What modest, openhanded kindness,
What tolerance in touch and tone

For braggart human nature's blind-
ness ?

Or what—the worser part to view—
Of wanton waste and reckless gam-
bling,

What darker paths shall he pursue

With sacrilegious step and shambling ?
What coarse defiance, haply, hurl

At lights beyond his comprehension—
An attitudinising churl
Who struts with ludicrous preten-
sion.

I know not—only this I know,_
They 're getting overstrained, my
ditties,

"^SSM^V This kind of poem ought^to flow

Second Week. Little 1892 grows rapidly, and
begins to look about him.

In sober prose to tell my tale,
'Twas Xew Year's E'en, when, blind to
danger,

All older-fashioned nurses hail
With joy " another little stranger."

The glass was in my hand—but, wait,

Methought, awhile ! _ 'Tis early toasting
With ppeans too precipitate

A baby scarce an outline boasting :
One week at least of life must flit

For me to match it with its brothers—
I '11 wager, like most infants, it

Is wholly different from others.

He frolics, latest of the lot,

A family prolific reckoned ;
He occupies his tiny cot,

The eighteen-hundred-ninety-second!
The pretty darling, gently nursed

Of course, he lies, and fondly petted !
The eighteen-hundred-ninety-first

Is not, I fancy, much regretted.

You call him " fine "—he's great in size,_

And "promising "—there issue from his
Tough larynx quite stentorian cries ;

Such notes are haply notes of promise.
Look out for squalls, J tell you ; soft

And dove-like atoms more engage us ;
Your fin-de-siecle child is oft

Loud, brazen, grasping, and rampageous.

You bid me next his eyes adore ;

So " deep and wideawake," they beckon ;
Wre've suffered lately on the score

Of " deep and wideawake," I reckon.
You term me an "unfeeling brute,"

A "monster Herod-like," and so on—
You may be right; I '11 not dispute ;

I'll cease a brat's good name to blow on.

Who '11 read the bantling's dawning days ?-

Precocious shall he prove, and harass
The world with inconvenient ways

And lisped conundrums that embarrass ?
(Such as Impressionists delight

To offer each aesthetic gaper,
And faddists hyper-Ibsenite

Rejoice to perpetrate on paper ?)

Or, one of those young scamps perhaps
Who love to rig their bogus bogies,

And set their artful booby-traps
For over-unsuspicious fogies ?

Or haply, only commonplace—
A plodding sort of good apprentice,

vol. cn.

Less like a solemn Nunc DimitUs."
'Twas jaunty when I struck my lyre,

And jaunty seems this yearling baby ;
But, as both year and song expire
They're sadder, each, and wiser, maybe.

POPULAE SONGS EE-SUNG.

" Hi-tiddley-hi-ti; or, I'm All Hight" is
heard, "all over the place," as light sleepers
and studious dwellers in quiet streets are too
well aware. Why should it not be enlisted
in the service of Apollo and Momus as well as
of the Back Slum Bacchus ? As thus :—

No. Y.—I-TWADDLEY-HIGH-D11Y-
HIGH-TOXED-I ! Oil, I 'M ALL BIGHT !

Am—'1 Hi- Tiddley-m- Ti ! "

I'm a young writer grimly gay,
My volumes sell, and sometimes pay.
First log-rollers raised a rumour of a rising
Star of Humour,
Who had faced the Sphinx called Life,
With amusing misery rife,
So with sin, and woe, and strife, 1 thought
I 'd have a lark.
With pessimistic pick I pottered round

Pottered round,
A new " funny " trick I quickly found,

Smart and sound,
Life's cares in hedonistic chuckles drowned,

You be bound!
The cynic lay
I found would pay,
In a young Man of Mark !

Chorus.

All of you come along with me !
I'm for a rare new fine new spree!
Everybody is delighted when the Philistines
are slighted,
All of vou come my books to try !
I-twaddley-I-ti I-I-I,
Ego for ever ! Buy ! Buy! Buy!

And I'm all right!

Down with the West I go ; my pen
Is bound to " fetch" the Upper Ten,
With the aid of some "log-rolling," my
" distinction " much extolling.
Smart little scribes from near and far
Say, with a sniff, " 0 here's a Star ! »
Dickens on fine souls doth jar, Thackeray is
too dry,

But his pessimistic air, rich and rare,

Subtle, fair,

Makes Philistia to stare, in a scare,

And to blare;
Whilst true Critics debonnaire, who are rare,

With & flaire,
For true humour,
Swell of rumour
The gregarious cry.

Chorus.

All of you come along with me !
You'll have a rare new fair new spree!
Paradox with "sniff" united, Poor Humanity
snubbed and slighted.
Humour's new cuvee, extra-dry.
I-twaddley--high-dry-high-toned I !
Come and worship the pessimist "I"

For thaf sail right!

After I've taken the tofiish Town,
A second edition, at Half-a-crown,
Seeks the suffrages —(and money, for on Swell-
dom you '11 go stoney ")—
Of the much derided Mob.
_ Yes, the Proletariat "Bob "
(With the Guinea of the Nob) must aid the
Sons of Light.
Gath and Askelon, you see, can give Me,

L. S. D. [three
All true Egoists love those pregnant letters

Mystic Three!
Flout Philistia with great glee, fair and free,

But agree
To take its " tin,'_'
Though with a grin
Of pessimistic spite.

Chorus.

All of you come along with me!
'Aery, who loves a fair old spree !
"Mugwump" with fine morgue delighted,
Cynic at4' yearnestness'' sore frighted!
All of you come my " tap" to try !
I-twaddley-high-dry-high-toned I!
Come along, boys, Buy! Buy! Buy !

And J'mall right!