Part 11

Pop gave him his only daughter, HUM PICKETY WIMPLE TIP: FRED vowed that if over the water He went, in an English ship, He’d make her his Queen,—though truly It is an unusual thing For a Caribbee brat who’s as black as your hat To be wife of an English King.

And all the Canoodle-Dummers They copied his rolling walk, His method of draining rummers, His emblematical talk. For his dress and his graceful breeding, His delicate taste in rum, And his nautical way, were the talk of the day In the Court of Canoodle-Dum.

CALAMITY POP most wisely Determined in everything To model his Court precisely On that of the English King; And ordered that every lady And every lady’s lord Should masticate jacky (a kind of tobaccy), And scatter its juice abroad.

They signified wonder roundly At any astounding yarn, By darning their dear eyes roundly (’T was all they had to darn). They “hoisted their slacks,” adjusting Garments of plantain-leaves With nautical twitches (as if they wore breeches, Instead of a dress like EVE’S!)

They shivered their timbers proudly, At a phantom forelock dragged, And called for a hornpipe loudly Whenever amusement flagged. “Hum! Golly! him POP resemble, Him Britisher sov’reign, hum! CALAMITY POP VON PEPPERMINT DROP, De King of Canoodle-Dum!”

The mariner’s lively “Hollo!” Enlivened Canoodle’s plain (For blessings unnumbered follow In Civilization’s train). But Fortune, who loves a bathos, A terrible ending planned, For ADMIRAL D. CHICKABIDDY, C.B., Placed foot on Canoodle land!

That rebel, he seized KING GOWLER, He threatened his royal brains, And put him aboard the Howler, And fastened him down with chains. The Howler she weighed her anchor, With FREDERICK nicely nailed, And off to the North with WILLIAM THE FOURTH These horrible pirates sailed.

CALAMITY said (with folly), “Hum! nebber want him again— Him civilize all of us, golly! CALAMITY suck him brain!” The people, however, were pained when They saw him aboard his ship, But none of them wept for their FREDDY, except HUM PICKETY WIMPLE TIP.

FIRST LOVE

A CLERGYMAN in Berkshire dwelt, The REVEREND BERNARD POWLES, And in his church there weekly knelt At least a hundred souls.

There little ELLEN you might see, The modest rustic belle; In maidenly simplicity, She loved her BERNARD well.

Though ELLEN wore a plain silk gown Untrimmed with lace or fur, Yet not a husband in the town But wished his wife like her.

Though sterner memories might fade, You never could forget The child-form of that baby-maid, The Village Violet!

A simple frightened loveliness, Whose sacred spirit-part Shrank timidly from worldly stress, And nestled in your heart.

POWLES woo’d with every well-worn plan And all the usual wiles With which a well-schooled gentleman A simple heart beguiles.

The hackneyed compliments that bore World-folks like you and me, Appeared to her as if they wore The crown of Poesy.

His winking eyelid sang a song Her heart could understand, Eternity seemed scarce too long When BERNARD squeezed her hand.

He ordered down the martial crew Of GODFREY’S Grenadiers, And COOTE conspired with TINNEY to Ecstaticise her ears.

Beneath her window, veiled from eye, They nightly took their stand; On birthdays supplemented by The Covent Garden band.

And little ELLEN, all alone, Enraptured sat above, And thought how blest she was to own The wealth of POWLES’S love.

I often, often wonder what Poor ELLEN saw in him; For calculated he was not To please a woman’s whim.

He wasn’t good, despite the air An M.B. waistcoat gives; Indeed, his dearest friends declare No greater humbug lives.

No kind of virtue decked this priest, He’d nothing to allure; He wasn’t handsome in the least,— He wasn’t even poor.

No—he was cursed with acres fat (A Christian’s direst ban), And gold—yet, notwithstanding that, Poor ELLEN loved the man.

As unlike BERNARD as could be Was poor old AARON WOOD (Disgraceful BERNARD’S curate he): He was extremely good.

A BAYARD in his moral pluck Without reproach or fear, A quiet venerable duck With fifty pounds a year.

No fault had he—no fad, except A tendency to strum, In mode at which you would have wept, A dull harmonium.

He had no gold with which to hire The minstrels who could best Convey a notion of the fire That raged within his breast.