Volume 147 — THE NEW NOAH'S ARK;

Remove yon odious concern That once outrode the mimic storm, And deep in darkest shelves intern Her captain and his pirate swarm: Sweep, sweep, that Dreadnought from the seas Of England's carpets, if you please, And set no more by two and two On Sabbath days her bestial crew, That mask with peace the Prussian uniform. I seem to see the War-Lord's lace Bedeck that bosom mild and stout; Athwart yon patriarchal face The Kaiser-like moustaches sprout; The wideawake becomes a helm, The staff a sword to overwhelm, Hypocrisy stands writ and cant On yonder pale-blue elephant Tusk-less (Maud did it when Mamma was out). What makes he with a lilac dove This Corsair desperate and daft? Behold the conning tower above The big stern chasers pointing aft! This is not he that saved mankind With pards and pigs from tempests blind, But rather he that forged a flood, And not of water but of blood, And filled with worse than wolves his impious craft. But come, we'll build a larger boat Of English breed, no Teuton shams, Where sheltered animals shall float, The lion couchant with the lambs: See from the cabin's open door What mild-faced dromedaries pour! What Shems are these? what host arrives Of gentler Japhets with their wives? What antelopes? what un-Westphalian Hams? And sometimes, should the pageant cloy, Supposing Nurse has left the room, We'll take again that outcast toy From the deep cupboard's inmost gloom; We'll shell that buccaneering barque With the good guns of England's ark; We'll chase it flying like a rat For some fort-guarded Ararat, And leave it flotsam for Jemima's broom.