PARODY ON THE BRIDGE.

183

His money gone, the miser hung
Himself in sheer despair:

Thus each the other's wants supplied,
And that was surely fair.

PUNCH.

PARODY ON THE BRIDGE.

I stood on the porch at midnight,
As the clock was striking the hour,
And the old gent rose-what a pity!
His look was dark and sour.

Among her long, dark tresses
My trembling fingers lay,

When the old gent's number elevens
Seemed to lift and bear me away.

As sweeping, eddying through me,
Arose my belated pride,

And streaming into the moonlight,
My coat tails floated wide.

And, like a cyclone rushing
Among my quaking fears,
A flood of thoughts came o'er me,
As I blushed behind my ears.

How often, O! how often,

In the days that have gone by, Have I stood on that porch at midnight And gazed on her bangs and eye.

How often, O! how often,

I have wished that the eddying tide Would bear the old gent on its bosom, O'er the ocean wild and wide.

For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of scare,
And I hardly dared to ask her,
For fear her pa was there.

But now he has ceased to annoy,
He sleeps beneath the tree,
And only the sorrows of others
Draw a mournful wail from me.

As I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each having a burden of leather,
Have sprung from a porch since then.

Forever and forever,

And thus a courtship goes,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as boots have toes.

BRAVA, TASMANIA!

A porch and a sign of affection,
And a papa shall appear,

As the symbol of love at midnight,
And a swift skedaddling there.

UNKNOWN.

185

BRAVA, TASMANIA!

Remove yon mutton from my sight,
Yon pallid loaf and sordid pickles,
I've supped on melody to-night—
No grosser food my palate tickles.

Have I not sat entranced, bewitched
By her, our new-found prima donna;
Then hurled her blessings, likewise pitched
My partner's bouquet down upon her.

(Excuse the rhyme. I own it crude;
But cannot wait to see a neater;
When with one's subject one's imbued,
What matter rhyme, or sense, or metre?)

A voice that thrilled, a voice that stilled

The very hearts of all who listened,

And called up happy tears that filled

The eyes wherein they welled and glistened.

The voice of warbling Philomel,
Lulling to rest the fair Titania.
It ceases-hark! the plaudits swell,
Cheer upon cheer-Brava, Tasmania!

I always liked good singing; yes,
Since I was quite a tiny shaver,
Though I don't know, I must confess,
A crotchet from a semiquaver.

I haven't the remotest ken

Of scales chromatic, diatonic! (And yet I meet no end of men, All members of the Philharmonic.)

But I am strangely moved to-night,
I can't be calm and analytic,

Nor vivisect my warm delight

With cold-nibbed steel like yonder critic.

Her "D below the treble stave,"

Her "F" that soars so far above itOf these let wise heads prave and rave, They sift her voice, I simply love it.

Who says we have no birds of song
Save those from other lands imported,

Does us, pardi, a grievous wrong,

The statement of a mind distorted.

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

We have sweet birds, whose native notes
The public praise without demur win;
And latest, best, the rhymester quotes
His country woman-Amy Sherwin.

187

GARNET WALCH.

POOR THING.

There was a little girl,

And she had a little curl
Right down in the middle of her forehead;

So she wore it to the hop,

And it happened off to drop

And the language that she thought was simply

horrid.

UNKNOWN.

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

Said Stiggins to his wife, one day,
"We've nothing left to eat :
If things go on in this queer way,
We shan't make both ends meet."