Shun sitting next the wight, whose drone Bores, sotto voce, you alone
With flat colloquial pressure:
Debarr'd from general talk, you droop
Beneath his buzz, from orient soup,
To occidental Cheshire.
He who can only talk with one,
Should stay at home, and talk with noneAt all events, to strangers,
Like village epitaphs of yore,
He ought to cry, 'Long time I bore,'
To warn them of their dangers.
There are whose kind inquiries scan
Your total kindred, man by man,
Son, brother, cousin joining.
They ask about your wife, who's dead,
And eulogise your uncle Ned,
Who died last week for coining.
When join'd to such a son of prate,
His queries I anticipate,
And thus my lee-way fetch up-
'Sir, all my relatives, I vow,
Are perfectly in health-and now
I'd thank you for the ketchup!'
Others there are who but retail
Their breakfast journal, now grown stale,
In print ere day was dawning;
When folks like these sit next to me,
They send me dinnerless to tea;
One cannot chew while yawning.
Seat not good talkers one next one,
As Jacquier beards the Clarendon ;
Thus shrouded you undo 'em!
Rather confront them, face to face,
Like Holles Street and Harewood Place,
And let the town run through 'em.
Poets are dangerous to sit nigh-
You waft their praises to the sky,
And when you think you're stirring Their gratitude, they bite you. (That's The reason I object to cats—
They scratch amid their purring.)
For those who ask you if you 'malt,'
Who 'beg your pardon' for the salt,
And ape our upper grandees,
By wondering folks can touch Port-wine;
That, reader, 's your affair, not mine—
I never mess with dandies.
Relations mix not kindly: shun
Inviting brothers; sire and son
Is not a wise selection :
Too intimate, they either jar
In converse, or the evening mar
By mutual circumspection.
Lawyers are apt to think the view
That interests them must interest you;
Hence they appear at table
Or supereloquent, or dumb,
Fluent as nightingales, or mum
As horses in a stable.
When men amuse their fellow-guests
With Crank and Jones, or Justice Best's
Harangue in Dobbs and Ryal-
The host, beneath whose roof they sit,
Must be a puny judge of wit,
Who grants them a new trial.
Shun technicals in each extreme :
Exclusive talk, whate'er the theme,
The proper boundary passes:
Nobles as much offend, whose clack's
For ever running on Almack's,
As brokers on molasses.
I knew a man, from glass to delf,
Who talk'd of nothing but himself,
'Till check'd by a vertigo;
The party who beheld him 'floor'd,'
Bent o'er the liberated board,
And cried, Hic jacet ego.'
Some aim to tell a thing that hit
Where last they dined; what there was wit Here meets rebuffs and crosses.
Jokes are like trees; their place of birth
Best suits them: stuck in foreign earth,
They perish in the process.
Ah! Merriment! when men entrap
Thy bells, and women steal thy cap,
They think they have trepann'd thee.
Delusive thought! aloof and dumb,
Thou wilt not at a bidding come,
Though Royalty command thee.
The rich, who sigh for thee-the great
Who court thy smiles with gilded plate,
But clasp thy cloudy follies :
I've known thee turn, in Portman Square,
From Burgundy and Hock, to share
A pint of Port at Dolly's.
Races at Ascot, tours in Wales,
Whitebait at Greenwich ofttimes fail,
To wake thee from thy slumbers.
E'en now, so prone art thou to fly,
Ungrateful nymph! thou'rt fighting shy
Of these narcotic numbers.
A KNIGHT and a lady once met in a grove,
While each was in quest of a fugitive love;
A river ran mournfully murmuring by,
And they wept in its waters for sympathy.
'Oh, never was knight such a sorrow that bore!'
'Oh, never was maid so deserted before!'
'From life and its woes let us instantly fly,
And jump in together for company!'
They search'd for an eddy that suited the deed,
But here was a bramble, and there was a weed;
'How tiresome it is!' said the fair with a sigh ;
So they sat down to rest them in company.
They gazed at each other, the maid and the knight;
How fair was her form, and how goodly his height !
'One mournful embrace,' sobb'd the youth, 'ere we die !'
So kissing and crying kept company.
'Oh, had I but loved such an angel as you !'
'Oh, had but my swain been a quarter as true!'
'To miss such perfection how blinded was I!'
Sure now they were excellent company!
At length spoke the lass, 'twixt a smile and a tear,
'The weather is cold for a watery bier;
When summer returns we may easily die-
Till then let us sorrow in company!'
CRAWFORD AND M'CABE, PRINTERS, QUEEN STREET, EDINBURGH,
|