"A QUIET PIPE."
Reading edition
"One touch of nature" kins To-day With classical Arcadia. This faun-like "nipper," Tree-perched, is tootling, tootling on, Though Pan be dead, Arcadia gone, And wild "Kazoos" are played upon By the cheap tripper. Half imp, half animal, behold The 'Arry of the Age of Gold In this young satyr! Lover of pleasure and of "lush" (Silenus at the slang might blush), Of haunted Nature's holy hush Irreverent hater. Mischief and music, mockery, Swift eyes oblique in goblin glee, And nimble finger; Sardonic lips that slide with speed Athwart the rangéd pastoral reed; Upon these things will fancy feed, And memory linger. Imp-urchin of the budding horn, Native to Nature's nascent morn, The same quaint pranks You played 'midst the Arcadian shade, By satyrs of to-day are played; Their nether limbs in "tweeds" arrayed Not shaggy shanks. Not cheap tan kids and Kino's best Can hide the frolic faun confest, Or coarse Silenus; Like Spenser's satyrs, they attack us, With rompings rouse, with noises rack us, Brutes in the train of beery Bacchus, And vulgar Venus. 'Arry's mouth-organ is, indeed, Far shriekier than your shrilling reed, Pan-fathered piper; While his tin-whistle!—a wood-god, Whose tympanum that sound should prod, Would start, and shriek, as though he trod Upon a viper. Ah, yes, my little satyr-friend, Better Arcadia than Southend On a Bank-Holiday! You and your Pan-pipe might appear, And tootle, yet not rend my ear. Or with a novel Panic fear Upset a jolly day. Aperch upon your branch, you carry A certain likeness to our 'Arry, Yet 'tis but slight. He could not sit, the noisy brute! And natural music mildly flute, Till the assembled nymphs were mute With sheer delight. He'd want the banjo and the bones, And rowdy words, and raucous tones, And roaring chorus. Urchin, I've done you grievous wrong! No echoes of Arcadian song Sound in the screech the holiday throng Rattle and roar us. To your shrill flutings I could listen When on the grass-blades dewdrops glisten, And morn is ripe. Could sit and hear your pastoral reed, In peace, and do myself, indeed (Fair laden with "the fragrant weed"), "A Quiet Pipe!"
THE HIGHLAND "CADDIE."
[There has been a strike among the Golf Caddies.]
Air—"The Blue Bells of Scotland."
Oh! where, and oh! where is your Highland "Caddie" gone? He's gone to join the Strike, and now "Caddie" I have none; And it's oh! in my heart that I wish the Strike were done! Oh! what, and oh! what does your Highland "Caddie" claim? He wants sixpence for a round of nine holes. It is a shame, And it's oh! in my heart that I fear 'twill spoil the game. And what, tell me what, are your Highland Caddie's tricks? He has "picketed the links" just to keep out all "knobsticks," And it's oh! in my heart, that I feel I'm in a fix! Suppose, oh! suppose that all Highland Caddies strike! I might have to turn up golf, and to tennis take, or "bike," But it's oh! in my heart that I do not think 'tis like!
"Name! Name!"—In a recent report from the East occurs the delightfully-suggestive name of "Seyd Bin Abed." Of course he is a relative to "Seyd im Gotup Agen." Or perhaps he has changed his name from "Seyd uad Bin Abed" to "Seyd Imon Sopha." If "Seyd" be not pronounced as "Seed" but as "Said," the above titles can be altered to match. True or not, yet "so it is Seyd." The news in which this name occurs appears to have reached the correspondent through a person called "Rumaliza." Can anything coming from a female styled "Rum Eliza" be credible?
Out of Court.—A sharp young lady listening to a conversation about witnesses being sworn in Court, interrupted with "I don't know much about kissing the book, but if I didn't like him, I'd soon bring the kisser to book."