Volume 100 / Act 2 — ANOTHER'S!
Reading edition
(A Once Rejected Address.)
Yes! Thou must be another's. Oh, Such anguish stands alone! I'd always fancied thou wert so Peculiarly mine own; No welcome doubt my soul can free; A convict may not choose— Yet, since another's thou must be, Most kindly tell me whose? Is it the Lord of Shilling Thrills Who penned The Black that Mails— That martial man who from the hills Excogitates his tales? Is it ubiquitous A. LANG? Nay, shrink not but explain To which of all the writing gang Dost properly pertain? Perchance to some provincial churl, Who blushes quite unseen? Perchance to some ambitious Earl Or Stockbroker, I ween? Such things have frequently occurred, And gems like thee have crowned The titular and moneyed herd, And made them nigh renowned. I know not, this alone is clear, Thou wert my sole delight; I pored on thee by sunshine, dear, I dreamed of thee at night. Thou wert so good—too splendid for The common critic's praise— And I was thy proprietor— And all the world must gaze! But Punch, that autocrat, decrees That thou another's art: I cannot choose but bow my knees And lacerate my heart. Thou must be someone's else, alack! The truth remains confessed— For Mr. P. hath sent thee back, My cherished little Jest.
FROM A FLY-LEAF.—"Buzziness first, pleasure after," as the bluebottle said when, after circling three times about the breakfast-table, he alighted on a lump of sugar.
SALISBURY AT ST. MARTINS'S-LE-GRAND.
How slow is fate from fatal friends to free us! Still, still, alas! 'tis "Ego et RAIKES meus."
"THE OXFORD MOVEMENT."—Not much to choose between this and the Cambridge movement in the last race.
PLACE OF BANISHMENT FOR MISTAKEN PERSONS.—The Isle of Mull.
