Punch / Almanack (1885)

December 9, 1884.]

PUNCH’S ALMANACK FOR 1885.

COMMENCING ECONOMY.

Got a Cigar, Old Chap?” “No. I only carry.Lights now.

A LOVE LAY A LA MODE.

Would you warble a lyric of love,

Of Love in the latter-day style ?

Go snatch a white plume from Dame Venus's dove.
For your Poet’s a party superbly above
A Gillott or goose-quill. How vile
The vulgarian varlet who’d tinkle-te-tink
His love on a banjo, or write it in ink ?

We must thrumb out our love on a lute.

’Tis the instrument most eomme ilfaut—

Though whether the thing’s like a fiddle or flute,

Or sounds with a twangle or tootle-te-toot,

I ’ll be hanged if I happen to know :

But Strephon—in rhyme—always has it at hand,
And this song is a lute-song you ’ll please understand.

It is set in three flats I may say,

In the very much minor, of course ;

That’s a sine qua, non in an amorous lay,

When inspired by the Muse of this lachrymose day,
Who is always delightfully hoarse
With weeping, for latter-day lovers rejoice
Like the cats on the tiles, and with tears in their voice.

If you do not quite relish the style
Of love-lyric, 1 ’ve no more to say ;

But you’d better not try, for it is not worth while
(And you’d only elicit Song’s scornfullest smilef,

Yovr hand at an amorous lay.

Try the drum if you like, or the fiddle or flute,

But you ’ll never make much of a fist with the lute.

Curious Farming Operations.—Harrowing Details.

THE THOUGHTFUL PEW-QPENEA AND JONES’S SUNDAY HAT.