Volume 107 — "MOVING ABOUT IN WORLDS NOT REALISED."

I suppose there's a war in the East, (I am deluged with pictures about it,) But I can't realise it—no, not in the least, And, in spite of the papers, I doubt it. A Chinaman seems such a nebulous chap, And I can't fancy shedding the gore of a Jap. Those parchmenty fellows have fleets? Big Iron-clads, each worth a million? I cannot conceive it, my reason it beats. The lord of the pencil vermilion Fits in with a teacaddy, not a torpedo. Just picture a Ram in that queer bay of Yedo! It seems the right place for a junk, (With a fine flight of storks in the offing), But think of a battle-ship there being sunk By a Krupp! 'Tis suggestive of scoffing. I try to believe, but 'tis merely bravado. It all seems as funny as Gilbert's Mikado. And then those preposterous names, Like a lot of cracked bells all a-tinkling! I try to imagine their militant games, But at present I can't get an inkling Of what it can mean when a fellow named Hong And one Ting (Lord High Admiral!) go it ding-dong! A Nelson whose nomen is Whang To me, I admit's, inconceivable. And war between Wo-Hung and Ching-a-Ring Chang, Sounds funny, but quite unbelievable. And can you conceive Maxim bullets a-sing Round a saffron-hued hero called Pong, or Ping-Wing? A ship called Kow-Shing, I am sure, Can be only a warship pour rire. And Count Yamagata—he must be a cure! No, no, friends, I very much fear That in spite of the pictures, and portraits, and maps, I can't make live heroes of Johnnies and Japs!