Works

At the outset I may mention it's my sovereign intention
To revive the classic memories of Athens at its best,
For my company possesses all the necessary dresses,...

A GENTLEMAN of City fame
Now claims your kind attention;
East India broking was his game,
His name I shall not mention:
No one of finely-pointed sense
Would violate a confidence,
And shall _I_ go...

When maiden loves, she sits and sighs,
She wanders to and fro;
Unbidden tear-drops fill her eyes,
And to all questions she replies,
With a sad heigho!
'Tis but a little word - "heigho!"...

Were I a king in very truth,
And had a son - a guileless youth -
In probable succession;
To teach him patience, teach him tact,
How promptly in a fix to act,
He should adopt, in point of fact,...

A man who would woo a fair maid,
Should 'prentice himself to the trade;
And study all day,
In methodical way,
How to flatter, cajole, and persuade.
He should 'prentice himself at fourteen...

Brightly dawns our wedding day;
Joyous hour, we give thee greeting!
Whither, whither art thou fleeting?
Fickle moment, prithee stay!
What though mortal joys be hollow?
Pleasures come, if sorrows follow:...

Were I thy bride,
Then the whole world beside
Were not too wide
To hold my wealth of love
Were I thy bride!
Upon thy breast
My loving head would rest,
As on her nest...

Oh, is there not one maiden breast
Which does not feel the moral beauty
Of making worldly interest
Subordinate to sense of duly?
Who would not give up willingly
All matrimonial ambition,...

A wonderful joy our eyes to bless,
In her magnificent comeliness,
Is an English girl of eleven stone two,
And five foot ten in her dancing shoe!
She follows the hounds, and on she pounds -...

Society has quite forsaken all her wicked courses,
Which empties our police courts, and abolishes divorces.
(Divorce is nearly obsolete in England.)
No tolerance we show to undeserving rank and splendour;...

When you're lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo'd by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in without impropriety;...

Oh! listen to the tale of little Annie Protheroe.
She kept a small post-office in the neighbourhood of BOW;
She loved a skilled mechanic, who was famous in his day -...

I've painted Shakespeare all my life -
"An infant" (even then at "play"!)
"A boy," with stage-ambition rife,
Then "Married to Ann Hathaway."

"The bard's first ticket night" (or "ben."),...

Take a pair of sparkling eyes,
Hidden, ever and anon,
In a merciful eclipse
Do not heed their mild surprise
Having passed the Rubicon.
Take a pair of rosy lips;
Take a figure trimly planned...

An Actor sits in doubtful gloom,
His stock-in-trade unfurled,
In a damp funereal dressing-room
In the Theatre Royal, World.

He comes to town at Christmas-time,
And braves its icy breath,...

An Actor sits in doubtful gloom,
His stock-in-trade unfurled,
In a damp funereal dressing-room
In the Theatre Royal, World.

He comes to town at Christmas-time,
And braves its icy breath,...

I love a man who'll smile and joke
When with misfortune crowned;
Who'll pun beneath a pauper's yoke,
And as he breaks his daily toke,
Conundrums gay propound.

Just such a man was BERNARD JUPP,...

I once did know a Turkish man
Whom I upon a two-pair-back met,
His name it was Effendi Khan
Backsheesh Pasha Ben Allah Achmet.

A Doctor Brown I also knew
I've often eaten of his bounty...

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.
...

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!
...