Works

Spurn not the nobly born
With love affected,
Nor treat with virtuous scorn
The well connected.
High rank involves no shame -
We boast an equal claim
With him of humble name
To be respected!...

Bob Polter was a navvy, and
His hands were coarse, and dirty too,
His homely face was rough and tanned,
His time of life was thirty-two.

He lived among a working clan...

Braid the raven hair,
Weave the supple tress,
Deck the maiden fair
In her loveliness;
Paint the pretty face,
Dye the coral lip.
Emphasize the grace
Of her ladyship!...

Oh, big was the bosom of brave ALUM BEY,
And also the region that under it lay,
In safety and peril remarkably cool,
And he dwelt on the banks of the river Stamboul.
...

Of all the ships upon the blue,
No ship contained a better crew
Than that of worthy Captain Reece.
Commanding of The Mantelpiece.

He was adored by all his men,
For worthy Captain Reece, R.N.,...

Two better friends you wouldn't pass
Throughout a summer's day,
Than DAMON and his PYTHIAS,
Two merchant princes they.

At school together they contrived
All sorts of boyish larks;...

Oh, that my soul its gods could see
As years ago they seemed to me
When first I painted them;
Invested with the circumstance
Of old conventional romance:
Exploded theorem!
...

Now, Marco dear,
My wishes hear:
While you're away
It's understood
You will be good,
And not too gay.
To every trace
Of maiden grace
You will be blind,
And will not glance...

The air is charged with amatory numbers
Soft madrigals, and dreamy lovers' lays.
Peace, peace, old heart! Why waken from its slumbers
The aching memory of the old, old days?
...

MACPHAIRSON CLONGLOCKETTY ANGUS McCLAN
Was the son of an elderly labouring man;
You've guessed him a Scotchman, shrewd reader, at sight,
And p'r'aps altogether, shrewd reader, you're right.
...

Emily Jane was a nursery maid,
James was a bold Life Guard,
John was a constable, poorly paid
(And I am a doggerel bard).

A very good girl was Emily Jane,
Jimmy was good and true,...

The Ballyshannon foundered off the coast of Cariboo,
And down in fathoms many went the captain and the crew;
Down went the owners greedy men whom hope of gain allured:...

PART I.


At a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supper
One whom I will call ELVIRA, and we talked of love and TUPPER,

MR. TUPPER and the Poets, very lightly with them dealing,...

A clergyman in Berkshire dwelt,
The REVEREND BERNARD POWLES,
And in his church there weekly knelt
At least a hundred souls.

There little ELLEN you might see,
The modest rustic belle;...

The bravest names for fire and flames,
And all that mortal durst,
Were General John and Private James,
Of the Sixty-seventy-first.

General John was a soldier tried,
A chief of warlike dons;...

It was a robber's daughter, and her name was Alice Brown;
Her father was the terror of a small Italian town;
Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing;...

They intend to send a wire
To the moon;
And they'll set the Thames on fire
Very soon;
Then they learn to make silk purses
With their rigs
From the ears of Lady Circe's
Piggy-wigs....

Although of native maids the cream,
We're brought up on the English scheme -
The best of all
For great and small
Who modesty adore.
For English girls are good as gold,...

A leafy cot, where no dry rot
Had ever been by tenant seen,
Where ivy clung and wopses stung,
Where beeses hummed and drummed and strummed,
Where treeses grew and breezes blew...

Haunted? Ay, in a social way
By a body of ghosts in dread array;
But no conventional spectres they
Appalling, grim, and tricky:
I quail at mine as I'd never quail
At a fine traditional spectre pale,...