One day there came to visit Sally’s
dad as sleek and smart
A chap as ever wandered there from any
foreign part.
Though his gentle birth and breeding he
did not at all obtrude
It was somehow whispered round he was
a simon-pure Dude.
Howsoe’er that may have been, it
was conspicuous to see
That he was a real Gent of an uncommon
high degree.
That Sally cast her tender and affectionate
regards
On this exquisite creation was, of course,
upon the cards;
But he didn’t seem to notice, and
was variously blind
To her many charms of person and the merits
of her mind,
And preferred, I grieve to say it, to
play poker with her dad,
And acted in a manner that in general
was bad.
One evening—’twas in
summer—she was holding in her lap
Her accordion, and near her stood that
melancholy chap,
Leaning up against a pillar with his lip
in grog imbrued,
Thinking, maybe, of that ancient land
in which he was a Dude.
Then Sally, who was melancholy too, began
to hum
And elongate the accordion with a preluding
thumb.
Then sighs of amorosity from Sally L.
exhaled,
And her music apparatus sympathetically
wailed.
“In the gloaming, O my darling!”
rose that wild impassioned strain,
And her eyes were fixed on his with an
intensity of pain,
Till the ranch-dog from his kennel at
the postern gate came round,
And going into session strove to magnify
the sound.
He lifted up his spirit till the gloaming
rang and rang
With the song that to his darling
he impetuously sang!
Then that musing youth, recalling all
his soul from other scenes,
Where his fathers all were Dudes and his
mothers all Dudines,
From his lips removed the beaker and politely,
o’er the grog,
Said: “Miss Larkin, please
be quiet: you will interrupt the dog.”
IN HIGH LIFE.
Sir Impycu Lackland, from over the sea,
Has led to the altar Miss Bloatie Bondee.
The wedding took place at the Church of
St. Blare;
The fashion, the rank and the wealth were
all there—
No person was absent of all whom one meets.
Lord Mammon himself bowed them into their
seats,
While good Sir John Satan attended the
door
And Sexton Beelzebub managed the floor,
Respectfully keeping each dog to its rug,
Preserving the peace between poodle and
pug.
Twelve bridesmaids escorted the bride
up the aisle
To blush in her blush and to smile in
her smile;
Twelve groomsmen supported the eminent
groom
To scowl in his scowl and to gloom in
his gloom.
The rites were performed by the hand and
the lip
Of his Grace the Diocesan, Billingham
Pip,
Assisted by three able-bodied divines.
He prayed and they grunted, he read, they
made signs.
Such fashion, such beauty, such dressing,
such grace
Were ne’er before seen in that heavenly
place!
That night, full of gin, and all blazing
inside,
Sir Impycu blackened the eyes of his bride.