Never, never, since old Troy fell

(Or fell not, ‘Gibbon versus Gell’)

Was ever battle fought so well. 2400

No fiery Arab ever hewed

Down Kafir dogs in ranks bestrewed

On crimson plain with half the will

As gars ye slaughter critics spill

The Readers’* blood, Reviewers kill.

I only hope some Homer may

Embalm your dust in deathless lay.”

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., pro-

poses a portrait to his volume.

“You’re in the regions of Romance;

Kindly return. Ere I commence

The work, indulge me with a hint 2410

About the kind of thing to print.

Shall I prefix a face in wood

Or steel cut out, showing my mood,

Romantical Byronic sneer

Round th’ oval region, and a tear

Trembling outside the canthi; or

Would you prefer the style of Yor-

ick—index laid on writhèd nose,

And cunning leer ’neath thickest brows,

And bulging forehead one foot high; 2420

Or Rab’lais, with expression sly,

The Stone derides this vanity,

And grinning mouth——”

Cried he, “Restrain

Thy jaw. A satirist, and vain

Of hair and grin and brow! Repent

In dust and Bengal blue th’ intent

To foist upon the world your looks.

The Public’s tired of buying books

* Namely, the publisher’s Readers, not the readers of this revelation.—F. B.

Half-a-crown dearer to be shown

Whether the author’s blond or brown;

Now every volume seems to groan 2430

’Neath weight of costard, and to moan

‘Caput apri defero,

Laus sit biblipolo’—

Big Bore’s head I offer, O!

Thanks to Messrs. Blank and Co.”

“Punning! a stone!” “Yes, sir, a man

Never omits a pun that can;

But, where he can’t, why, then, to mock it,

His envy dubs punster ‘Pickpocket.’

“Genius, man, never will endure 2440

Communism—of that be sure.”

“But I’m no genius.”

“You should try,

Then, t’ ape its singularity—

Originality they call ’t —

So shall your readers be at fault;

For few are they, or young or old,

Know well gilt brass from purest gold;

And, when some simple savan tries

and ridicules even a phreno-

logic sketch,

To pluck the bandage from their eyes,

’Tis ten to one they sneer, and quote 2450

Something about a beam and mote.

As for your forehead, this the rule—

A large-brow’d fool is twice a fool.

I happened once to know a huge-

sconc’d individual called F * * *—

So tall his cranium, broad his brain-

pan, Gall and Combe had sworn ’tis plain

As Donovan’s mouth he wore a mind

To influence and rule his kind:

The calvary deserved to bear a 2460

Craniological tiara;

But that within was vulgar, dense,

And hardly worth its weight in pence

For cat’s-meat.”

“Phrenologic sketch,

Being original, might catch

Some gudgeons,” I put in——

“There, there;

Sketch both your hams for all I care,

Or draw your coccyx os. Conceit

Is authorcraft’s own mental meat,

And serves him from ancestral seat. 2470

inveighing against the frantic folly of authors.

There’s not a goose-quill of ye all,

From garret to baronial hall,

Young, old, plain, handsome, great or small,

That stands not forth the world before

For men to tremble and adore,

That for himself is slow to claim

To be the crêmest of the crême.”

“Faith, you’re a cynic all ran rabid,

Ultra-Diogenes more crabbed

Than any stale virginity 2480

In robe of spotless dimity.

Perhaps you can still more complain

Of London life?”

With might and main

He groaned aloud, e’en as might do

The Methodist that wants to show

Thereupon the Stone breaks into a philippic against street-

walkers,

Bottle and purse are very low,

And thus resumed: “What weighs me down

In this your God-forgotten town—

What nightly makes me wish I were

In muddy Thames or anywhere 2490

Else—is the horrid degradation

Of the Hetæra’s incalcation.

O what potato heels and toes!

How dread her stamp as on she goes,

Wolf-like, upon the human tracks,

Hurls horrid oaths and foul jests cracks

In ghastly mirth, as the Death’s head

Grinning before Egyptian ‘spread;’

Wafting of gin th’ infernal stench

Till e’en Cotytto’s ghost would blench; 2500

For ne’er, I ween, had met its eyes

Such ultra-Thracian mysteries!

By all the virtues Britons claim,

By all your sense of human shame,

Have you, I ask, no means to stop

The growth of such a poison crop—

To curb a scandal makes your name

Now and hereafter most infame?

I hear it said, were you to cull

From every city every trull 2510

Of abominablest infamy,

And loose them here their chance to try,

No two of them could e’er excel

One of these candidates for hell.

Remain ye idle, careless mute,

While such foul scenes and sights pollute

Innocency’s sanctuaries—

Your children’s opening minds and eyes;

Or fondly deem ye such things are

To them unknown, unheard of? Far 2520

Front this, I may with safety say,

Rare is the brat in present day

That learns not with his penny trumpet

The name and nature of a strumpet—

That can’t, all sage, discriminate

Betwixt the verb to fornicate,

And with a just discrimen see

The difference of adultery.

’Tis said fruits prove the parent tree

Or sound or else unsound to be. 2530

To judge from spec’mens of your fruit,

The tree must be a Upas shoot,

Within whose ring of poison gloom

Rank Sin and Death luxuriant bloom—

Disease that leaves to far off time

The dreadful legacy of crime;

That, on your children’s guiltless heads,

Vials of Heavenly vengeance sheds;

That saps your race’s vigour, and

Spreads like a plague o’er every land. 2540

O falsest of false modesty!

Pharisaic hypocrisy!

These crying horrors to ignore,

Nor stretch one hand to salve the

sore!

O silly shame, to you confined,

Unto all vile unkindly kind,

Britannia, wake, turn on the gas,

And, with thy trident, to the ‘Cas;’

Then wend thy melancholic way

Adown the Market named of Hay, 2550

Into the thick night-houses stray,

And end them, like a good old soul,

With Cider Cellar and Coal Hole.”

whom Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., defends on the usual grounds.

I thought awhile, and thus replied:

“Let your immoral peoples hide

Such scenes with cloak of privacy:

We British English like to see

Them, as in evidence they show

Our mental frame hath power to throw

Out on the surface its foul humours 2560

The Stone replies fiercely that “trees are known by their fruits,”

As healthy constitution’s tumours.”

“Man,” said he, gruffly, “pray go try

On softer souls your sophistry;

Let pamphleteering priest deceive,

Newspaper-spelling fool believe;

Let all the Commons, all the Lords,

Lend amplest credit to such words:

Me one sage sentence fully suits,

‘Good trees are they that bear good fruits.’

Your Knowledge-apple is a mess 2570

Of most infragrant rottenness;

And, for its core, I’ve mainly found

Inside and outside correspond.

When I see nought but simony,

Souls bought and sold for sly money,

and that the Church’s pride alienates it from its origin.

A mercantile affair their ‘cure,’

I know such things can’t long endure.

Your Churchmen, puffed with pomp and pride,

Claiming this world, the next beside,

Recall me not the mighty dead, 2580

Whose humble state their tenets spread.

Not such th’ old moralists that strove

By wordless works of love to prove

The faiths for which they lived and died,

In death by living glorified.

Whoe’er could boast two coats was told

One should be worn, the other sold.

How many coats, d’ye think, contains

Yon bishop’s lackey’s room?—yet feigns

That bishop he to Paul succeeds. 2590

Where tall trees fall spring noxious weeds!

The marrow of the thing may be

Piety or impiety;

But, when I judge of works, my eyes

Th’ outside, not th’ inside, scrutinize.”

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., declares that the streets are pure by

day.

“At any rate, our streets by day

Are pure enough, say what you may.”

“Sir, if your streets are bad by night,

By day they are as vicious quite.

The Stone declares they are not,

I speak not of the swell-mob crew 2600

In every lane that meet the view—

Pickpockets, flashmen, and garotters

That ruffle up and down your trottoirs.

Another deeper case I meant.

There’s not a snob or Sunday gent

That ‘sports’ not some foul sentiment;

Each shop-boy’s a La Rochefoucault,

Each cabman deals in Attic salt;

E’en the Bœotian drayman swears

Far-fetched oaths with witty airs. 2610

The bottle-washing boys that carry

Pills and draughts for apothecary

Instance how well canaille know

To ape their betters and to show

Their reading in Life’s folio.

Your higher classes, as they term

Themselves, are quite as bad. I’m firm

In this my statement. As a sample,

The quoted may be deemed proof ample.

SENT. I.*

cites proofs,

“‘A promise, like a pie-crust, ’s meant 2620

For breaking, when convenient.’

* N.B.—Not borrowed from “The Dirty Little Snob,” by Mr. Chas. Mackay, whose latest good news to us is “Rot, poor old pen! die, hapless bard!”—F. B.

SENT. II.

“‘Tell her the truth? You precious flat!

To woman lies are tit for tat.’

SENT. III.

“‘Society’s essence, I opine,

Is a good feed with better wine.

The feast of reason and the flow

Of soul, you know, ’s all “rococo.”’

SENT. IV.

“‘The real value of a friend

Is just what he will give or lend.’

SENT. V.

“‘My tailor’s waxing violent, 2630

And, when I venture to indent

On the governor, like Polar bear

The old put growls me deaf, I swear.

Hail Continent and misanthropy!

Demme, good sir, the desert for me!’

SENT. VI.

“‘I marry Sal; her brothers are

Ordered out to this Indian war—

One croaks with fever, t’other’s shot;

And so the coin’s my charmer’s lot.’

SENT. VII.

“‘Two things are sweet in polished life— 2640

A friend’s old wine and younger wife;

And two things mort’lly I detest—

An honest woman and a priest.’

SENT. VIII.

“‘Lord, man, you’d laugh your larynx hoarse

To see him pick the spavin’d horse.

He asked me if I’d sell the other;

“Gad, sir,” said I, “I’d sell my mother,

But she’s so old there’s none would buy

her.”

“Ah, trot her out,” cried he; “we’ll try her.”’

SENT. IX.

“‘I’m not quite ass enough to cry 2650

Because my elder brothers die.

Three ’twixt me and the property;

Faith, they’ve no time to lose, say I.’

SENT. X.

“‘A precious dolt the chap must be

That dies for, bah! L. O. V. E.;

The which, transposed, upon my soul,

Denote a nobler thing—“La Vole.”’*

SENT. XI.

“‘I say, that precious Yahoo, Mister * * *,

Wanted to fight about—his sister!’

SENT. XII.

“‘While I’ve a cooter in my purse 2660

I’ll take no woman for better or

worse;

Till turned of fifty, then, of course,

Your wife’s a good and unpaid nurse.’

*At Ecarté, I presume.—F. B.

SENT. XIII.

“‘The old girl’s forty, but she’s money.

I’m two-and-twenty: ‘twill be funny

To see me, as John Little said,

Lickerish in my grandam’s bed!’

SENT. XIV.

“‘When the old bird hops off the perch,

Then, Poll, my pet, we’ll go to church.

(Aside) She is uncommon mild— 2670

A girl without coin and with child.’

and waxes very wrathful.

“Can I contain my wrath! why should

I do so even if I could?

You Cains that walk the London streets,

Ye little ‘Devil’s-hypocrites’!

Lucifers of the shop and till!

Machiavels of the oven and mill!

Petroniuses and Talleyrands

Of livery stables and errands!

Gentlemen into ‘gent’ cut down! 2680

Small bourgoisie to Borgias grown!

Are Reason, Sense, and Virtue flown

So far away ye dare not own

To an acquaintance with the name

Of Goodness without blush of shame?

Did ye act out each nauseous boast,

I’d think ye all a mission host

Sent by Sathanas’ ’hest to levy

Of volunteers an ardent bevy.

But, no! small things, I know ye

quake 2690

Privately at the lie ye spake

So bravely to your friends; and why?—

To prove your wit, your manhood? Fie!

“An hour ago I said, Sir, we

Stones look towards futurity——”

“Enjoy the ‘is;’ no one e’er saw

The ‘will be,’ or the ‘was’ re-saw;

And, though some German swears the present

Is not, I say th’ idea’s pleasant.”

“Your ‘sentiment’! your dainty bit 2700

Of quibbling, verbal grammar wit!

Your galimatias! would you close

My mouth for ever?”

Fearing to lose

His latest words, rebuked, I sat

Listening,

The Stone looks into futurity;

“Futurity, I state,

When we shall come t’ our own again,

Again assert our ancient reign,

And sit upon the throne we once

So proudly held—the human sconce.

In days of yore we stones (and faggots) 2710

Were used to purge of Schism’s maggots

And Doubts the brains that dared to breed

Question of catechism or creed.

Still, it is said, in distant lands

We are strong weapons in the hands

Of priests, who, knowing well that edo

Is properest terminal of credo,

Are by their mundane interests led

T’ insinuate into human head

By stones what argument can’t teach. 2720

“Europe, the recipe’s in thy reach—

Simple, yet sure, Thus it is: Bind

The unconvinced one’s hands behind;

Then bring your mob, with stones and clods,

To vindicate insulted gods.

The light work done, smash in his skull,

And break his backbone with the full

advises intolerance,

Force of your argumental State

Machine for righting sceptic pate:

He’ll feel its force, and, lest his fate 2730

Some softer soul commiserate,

Tell him that Allah the Raheem*

Made stones to smite lips that blaspheme

His name. If all this reason fail,

Him with the same strong proof assail.

“But your wise folk in Europe now

Think the Creator strong enow

To settle his own quarrels—fear

To crop the Deist’s nose or ear—

Are too enlightened, or too good, 2740

To shed the blatant Atheist’s blood

You cut him dead; but, as his throat

Is safe, he careth not a groat.

“And see, th’ adulterer, he thrives

With you like cat with ninety lives:

In Jews’ and Moslems’ dispensation

punishment of adultery,

We soon cut short his avocation.

There the amour detected led

Directly to a stone-cracked head;

Your brighter souls prefer to see 2750

Him settled by some pert Q. C.—

Some Buz-fuz Bovell, Edwin James,

Or other talking thing that shames

The name of Themis. You would damage

His ‘bons’ and not his bones; you rummage

* One of the Moslems’ names for the Supreme Being, meaning “The Merciful.”—F. B.

His chest and eke his case to find

Food for enlightened Public’s mind,

Institute Probate and Divorce

Courts to inflame the evil worse,

Each fact least decent joy to trace, 2760

And, with delicious detail, grace

Tale of a ‘charming crim. con. case.’

Lotharios who have funds to pay

At that same game here safely play.

’Tis only paupers can’t afford

Part in their neighbour’s bed and board.

‘Come, Fan, with me, and be my love,

And we will o’er Ausonia rove,

Where no stiff prude shall sneer and say

Sweet Fan’s a naughty divorcée.’” 2770

“Stone, outrag’d Honour——”

“Good sir, oftest

Inflicts the penalty the softest;

And, in such cases, very great is

The chance of getting off clean gratis.

For Honour, in her quiet way,

Stifles the-ugly exposé;

And few now fight, while fewer fall

By pistols only wanting ball,

Save youngest hands, who’re sometimes found

Wounded—in mind—upon the ground. 2780

The herd will aye prefer relief

For cornute pain, connubial grief,

(not damages),

And broken heart and woe intense

By bank-note plaster, salve of pence.

The man who pockets his disgrace

Never, methinks, should show his face

Without his ticket, duly worn

Suspended to his dexter horn.

Yet so ’tis not: Society

Treats him as well as you or me; 2790

And, if he’s rich, pray who’ll refuse

Once more to let him pick and choose?

“Faith, sir, in Britain there’s a price,

A tariff for each sin and vice

Not difficult to calculate;

impartial justice,

Although the values fluctuate.

Crime, also, hath its market rate,

Though grown exorbitant of late.

It is a goodly sight to see

Astræa in nineteenth century, 2800

In robes of solemn black berigged,

With a huge horse-hair wig befigged,

Bagging poor Peter’s Pence, and crying

‘Ho! Dispensations! who’s for buying?’

But, when unmoneyed criminals steal,

Or forge, or kill, stern fingers feel

The edge of her avenging steel,

Which, were the culprit rich, would lie

In scabbard cased eternally,

And be to all, save common fellow, 2810

Nothing but ‘leather and prunella.’

When ducal hands cut common throat——”

“The duke must hang——”

“Yes, sir, but note

The gap ’twixt fictions of the law

And facts not you or I e’er saw.

Dukes have an easy saving clause;

Lawyer hath pouch—indictment flaws.

The grandee drives away on bail—

The pauper’s carried straight to jail.

Soldier’s habitual drunkenness 2820

Is a trimestrial excess;

Among the captains met to try

The private for debauchery,

How many, if the truth they’d speak,

Would own to ‘freshness’ once a week?”

“Station and rank must be upheld,

And wealth should make a man be bailed.”

“The ‘must’ and ‘should’ I cannot see;

It is your shame such things should be.

For, mark me, sir, in this fair land 2830

No sin is hated, crime is banned,

Like poverty: here to be poor

Is to be vile. The wide world o’er

’Tis a misfortune—here a worse

Than any sublunary curse.

less avarice,

Rich Vice trips out in laced chemise,

Poor Virtue shakes her cold-chapped knees;

Chastity hath nor shoon nor hose,

And Honour swabs a snivelling nose. [2840

And why? D’ye ask? Because you’ve sold

Your souls for filthy Mammon’s gold.

Long since from pest’lent Guinea’s plains

Came the ‘vile yellow slave’* that reigns

Supreme o’er England’s coasts and chains

Its thirty million sovereigns,

Of whom few souls would not adore

The golden calf to ‘bone’ its ore.

’Tis only when it’s lead you’re strong

In love of right, in hate of wrong.

You’re very dotards in your lust 2850

Of lucre, madmen in your trust

To acre-might. Some South Sea scheme,

* From poor John Leyden’s pathetic “Ode to an Indian Gold Coin.”—F. B.

Some art of turning coin to steam,

Some project wild as drunkard’s dream

Starts up each century, and drives

Britannia raving mad. So strives

The cunning maniac to conceal

His dread complaint. Would you reveal

The horrid malady, and goad

Into a fiend what seemed a load? 2860

With wizard wand of words that part

He hideth with his studied art.

But touch, and see his passions rise!

Mark all the demon in his eyes!

With you the latest wand appeared

In Engine shape; you forthwith reared,

Acteon-like, a bestial front,

With crowns of branching antlers on’t.

What Dian, Circe, Moon, had might

To work such marvel? What fierce sprite, 2870

Tell me, what Hecate-taught hag

Thus metamorphosed man to stag,

Sending him forth in modern days,

Nebuchadnezzar-like, to graze

Where’er a Railway king might lead—

Like Schwein-König of comic Head*—

King Hudson, who could e’en permute,

As royal Lub,† mankind to brute!

Till, after brief but brilliant sway,

He sank t’ a thing as low as they. 2880

The fit hath passed, yet still remains

Its traces burnt in many brains—

* See “Bubbles from the Brunnens of Nassau,” by Sir Francis Head, Bart.—F. B.

† A celebrated enchantress in the “Arabian Nights.”—F. B.

To be expelled when Furies send

Another and more frantic fiend;

And even now ye’re hardly sane,

But sad with unforgotten pain—

Many a loser sick and sore

With ruin’s potent Hellebore;

While, in the few, fixed melancholy

Hath ta’en the place of frantic folly, 2890

Let me prescribe a cure which all

Will join in owning radical—

The real Font de la Jouvence,

Which can bring back your better sense,

The only dose for certain health—

and disgorging over wealth.

Namely, disgorging th’ over wealth,

Th’ ungodly fill with which your claws

Have crammed and rammed your ravening

maws.

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., objects, and even threatens.

Render, I say.”

“Stone, Chartist ‘chaff’

Calls for the flail of Special’s staff. 2900

Like Quaker Bright, wouldst parcel out

Our nobles’ lands to rabble rout?

Wouldst, like the bagman Cobden, see all

Perfections in one beau idéal—

The dis-United States—and plan

For John the fate of Jonathan,

Manifest fate of Uncle Sam,

Whom wiser men call Uncle Sham?”

“Man, I’ve an honest petrifaction;

Little I feel for petty faction 2910

Of patriots paid so much a day

To march with flags and run away.

And, what is more, I would not barter

Bond Pennsylvanian for Big Charter,

Whereupon

the Stone actually abuses Magna Charta,

Your liberalo-politic creed,

Calf-skin Tables of Runnymede—

To Lackland sense and wit baronial

Most creditable testimonial

(The which enables every stark ass

To have and hold his proper carcass, 2920

And eke demand a baker’s dozen

Of jurymen the law to cozen,

The benefit of which appears

In Lion Range from negro peers).*

Of all the barons meeting there

How many read or wrote? They were

Dext’rous at pulling nose with grace

Their mutton fists could mar a face

As well as mighty Mahmud’s mace,†

And, with one buffet, breast-plate batter 2930

As flat as farmer’s pewter platter;

Their mighty draughts of beer and mead

Could flood the fields of Runnymede:

Strong men-at-arms, they had stiff seats

On steed, were proud of jousting feats—

Not as your ‘silken barons’ play,

With long cracked poles at mock tournay

(Like hodded cocks on soft green sward),

A tableau-vivant tilting-yard,

Passage of arms to scaramouch 2940

The dust of Ashby de la Zouche;‡

Not like Smith’s knights, whose arms

adorn

The tournament of Smith’s Cremorne,

* Alluding, perhaps, to the quasi-infernal Sierra Leone.—F. B.

† The conqueror of Somnauth.—F. B.

‡ For which see “Ivanhoe.”—F. B.

Where the object of the fray appears

Only t’ avoid the shock of spears.

Their lances, sir, were strong, were sharp,

More than their wits: on this I harp,

Because your age finds greater charms

In their dull wisdom than their arms.

To copy all they said—not did— 2950

Sir, I would bid your people rid

Themselves of all the ills they suffer,

And not a patched-up armistice offer

and lapses into treasonable talk.

Upon such terms as cheaper bread

Or votes at £5 5. a head.

Ages to come mankind shall quote

The Great Napoleon’s Code: he wrote

From dictate of superior sense,

Not extracts from the impotence

Which Pepin might have penned, or great 2960

Carolus scratching scurfy pate.*

Ye Chartist wormkins, pull up roots

Of wrongs, and thus you’ll kill the shoots;

But——”

“Stop!” cried I; “hast lost thy reason?

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., would restrain him,

Ruffian, thy words are rank high treason.

I, too, a’ ‘Special.’”

“Ass!” said he;

“Choose other subject; what made ye

Provoke me to it?” I could hear

Him muttering to himself—“A year

Or ten, perhaps—trampled upon— 2970

Starved—Lords and Commons, all dupe

on!—

* “Charlemagne, being dull at his pen, was in the habit of looking to the ceiling for words and of scratching his head to urge his thoughts.” (Old Chronicle).—F. B.

Pikes, bludgeons—William Tell, Jack Cade—

Horseguards and Foot—a barricade—

Sulphuric acid—Specials to pot—

As fou, but not so brisk as Lot——”

The last allusion was too much

For me t’ endure. “Wretch!” cried I, “such

Insinuations loudly call

For treatment in Correction Hall.”

but cannot.

“You mean the station?” [2980

“Yes, of course.”

“Then will I tell you something worse.”

I sat as one spell-bound to see

His grimy grin of vicious glee.

“Stones, as I oft to you have said,

Ere this have broken human head;

And soon it may be ours again

The Stone looks forward to a London barricade match,

To test the strength of human brain.

“Behold our proper paradise—Paris.

How gentle, gay, polite—how far is

Our Paris from an insurrection? 2990

You’d say, ‘From this to Resurrection!’

You’re wrong. A dinner’s countermanded.

The weather’s sultry; they’ve demanded

Reasons: the only answer given

Is something touching anti-Heaven.

Two fellows hap to meet: one swears

C’est un peu fort; his friend declares

C’est infâme, that evil days

Are on the Français et Françaises.

A third man thinks it won’t ‘draw length’ 3000

Before Parisians show their strength.

A fourth opines—if e’er, ’tis now—

That brave men ought their strength to show,

And counsels all ‘poltrons’ to go

Somewhere. A fifth says present is

The best of opportunities,

And, being an ancient militaire,

Offers to manage the affair;

While some old chef of barricades

His tactics ’fore the crowd parades, 3010

Sans further parlez-vous, they rush

Into the next gun-shop, and push

The owner out of house and hall

To show the People’s might—that’s all—

And kiss his daughter or his wife

To give the thing a spice of life.

This first step ta’en, they congregate,

Dozens and scores, in frantic state.

Not one has time to think or doubt,

Or ask or see what he’s about— 3020

Boys bad as men, and women first

Of plagues, as usual, and the worst.

A sea of blood, o’er whose fierce tide

Satan himself might gloat with pride,

In one quart d’heure—tables, chairs,

Beds, wardrobes, boxes, strips of stairs;

And we, sir, placed on planks in layers.”

(“Thank God, from Paris streets stone all’s

Gone!——”

“Yes, but they’ve left it in the walls!)

Proclaim Messieurs ‘No thoroughfare.’ 3030

Now, armed by magic, some prepare

Flanking defences from the windows;

Some dance, drink, sing, curse, try what din does

T’ excite their enemies to fight.

Faith, ’tis a spirit-stirring sight!

Clashes the tocsin, rolls the drum

Loud notes above the savage hum,

Whose key-note is the Sacré nom

‘Allahu’* of Gallic Christendom;

Blares the loud trump, and woman’s shriek 3040

Inflames the brave and nerves the weak.

Now all’s still as the tomb: the mound

One mounts, to hear the measured sound

Of ironed hoofs and gaitered feet

Slowly defiling up the street.

No ‘obus’? À merveille! Clear

These warriors know nought of war!

* * * * *

describing one at Paris.

“A pause, a brief, long-seeming pause,

Broken in time—a shot the cause,

Th’ effect an empty saddle. ‘Vive 3050

La Charte!’† Now, patriots, give

‘Pepper’ as well as tongue! prepare

Rifle and knife with anxious care!

Climb the banquette—on t’other side

Pour in a ceaseless fiery tide!

A feu d’enfer that mows them down

Like grass before the practised clown.

Ye flankers, fire! women, vitriol throw

Upon the fated troupe below! [3060

Splash face and arms with gore; ’twill show—

Well—hero-like: O qu’il est beau!

You die? Eh bien! your friends will mourn,

And give, perhaps, a plaster urn

Where Paris plants her choicest bays—

In pretty, trashy Père la Chaise.

Your brother falls: a rien!—drive

Your blade through slaves that run to live!

* “Allah he!” (is Allah!) the Moslem war-cry—F. B.

† Which, if memory serves me, was usually pronounced “La Chatte.”—F. B.

They charge; bah! Let them near you; keep

Your fire awhile. Now roll your heap

Of stones from every window-sill! 3070

Cold iron hurl, hot water spill!

Fill your barrels, men, fill, re-fill!

Taunt, howl, or else they’ll bolt before

You’ve tasted half enough of gore—

Before your hero-boy or wife

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