VIII.

      However, at last,
      When six weeks had gone past,
Intelligence came of a plausible cast;
      A wondering clown,
      At a hamlet near town,
Had seen “like a moon of green cheese” coming down.

IX.

      Soon spread the alarm,
      And from cottage and farm,
The natives buzz’d out like the bees when they swarm;
      And off ran the folk,—­
      It is such a good joke
To see the descent of a bagful of smoke.

X.

      And lo! the machine,
      Dappled yellow and green,
Was plainly enough in the clouds to be seen: 
      “Yes, yes,” was the cry,
      “It’s the old one, sure_ly_,
Where can it have been such a time in the sky?”

XI.

      “Lord! where will it fall? 
      It can’t find out Vauxhall,
Without any pilot to guide it at all!”
      Some wager’d that Kent
      Would behold the event,
Debrett had been posed to predict its descent.

XII.

      Some thought it would pitch
      In the old Tower Ditch,
Some swore on the Cross of St. Paul’s it would hitch;
      And Farmers cried “Zounds! 
      If it drops on our grounds,
We’ll try if Balloons can’t be put into pounds.”

XIII.

      But still to and fro
      It continued to go,
As if looking out for soft places below;
      No difficult job,
      It had only to bob
Slap-dash down at once on the heads of the mob: 

XIV.

      Who, too apt to stare
      At some castle in air,
Forget that the earth is their proper affair;
      Till, watching the fall
      Of some soap-bubble ball,
They tumble themselves with a terrible sprawl.

XV.

      Meanwhile, from its height
      Stooping downward in flight,
The Phenomenon came more distinctly in sight: 
      Still bigger and bigger,
      And strike me a nigger
Unfreed, if there was not a live human figure!

XVI.

      Yes, plain to be seen,
      Underneath the machine,
There dangled a mortal—­some swore it was Green;
      Some mason could spy;
      Others named Mr. Gye;
Or Holland, compell’d by the Belgians to fly.

XVII.

      ’Twas Graham the flighty,
      Whom the Duke high and mighty
Resign’d to take care of his own lignum-vitae;
      ’Twas Hampton, whose whim
      Was in Cloudland to swim,
Till e’en Little Hampton looked little to him!