The Humorous Poetry of the English Language; from Chaucer to Saxe eBook

Go where we may—­rest where we will,
Eternal London haunts us still,
The trash of Almack’s or Fleet-Ditch—­
And scarce a pin’s head difference which—­
Mixes, though even to Greece we run,
With every rill from Helicon! 
And if this rage for traveling lasts,
If Cockneys of all sets and castes,
Old maidens, aldermen, and squires,
will leave their puddings and coal fires,
To gape at things in foreign lands
No soul among them understands—­
If Blues desert their coteries,
To show off ’mong the Wahabees—–­
If neither sex nor age controls,
  Nor fear of Mamelukes forbids
Young ladies, with pink parasols,
  To glide among the Pyramids—­
Why, then, farewell all hope to find
A spot that’s free from London-kind! 
Who knows, if to the West we roam,
But we may find some Blue “at home”
  Among the blacks of Carolina—­
Or, flying to the eastward, see
Some Mrs. Hopkins, taking tea
  And toast upon the Wall of China.

OF FACTOTUM NED. THOMAS MOORE.

Here lies Factotum Ned at last: 
 Long as he breath’d the vital air,
Nothing throughout all Europe pass’d
 In which he hadn’t some small share.

Whoe’er was in, whoe’er was out—­
  Whatever statesmen did or said—­
If not exactly brought about,
  Was all, at least, contrived by Ned.

With nap if Russia went to war,
  ’Twas owing, under Providence,
To certain hints Ned gave the Czar—­
  (Vide his pamphlet—­price six pence).

If France was beat at Waterloo—­
  As all, but Frenchmen, think she was—­
To Ned, as Wellington well knew,
  Was owing half that day’s applause.

Then for his news—­no envoy’s bag
  E’er pass’d so many secrets through it—­
Scarcely a telegraph could wag
  Its wooden finger, but Ned knew it.

Such tales he had of foreign plots,
  With foreign names one’s ear to buzz in—­
From Russia chefs and ofs in lots,
 From Poland owskis by the dozen.

When George, alarm’d for England’s creed,
  Turn’d out the last Whig ministry,
And men ask’d—­who advised the deed? 
  Ned modestly confess’d ’twas he.

For though, by some unlucky miss,
  He had not downright seen the King,
He sent such hints through Viscount this,
  To Marquis that, as clench’d the thing.

The same it was in science, arts,
  The drama, books, Ms. and printed—­
Kean learn’d from Ned his cleverest parts,
  And Scott’s last work by him was hinted.

Childe Harold in the proofs he read,
  And, here and there, infused some soul in ’t—­
Nay, Davy’s lamp, till seen by Ned,
  Had—­odd enough—­a dangerous hole in’t.

’Twas thus, all doing and all knowing,
  Wit, statesman, boxer, chemist, singer,
Whatever was the best pie going,
  In that Ned—­trust him—­had his finger.