Verse and Worse

There's his haft upon the table, there's his head upon a chair;
And a better never felt the summer rain;
I may curse and I may swear, my umbrella-stand is bare,
I shall never use my gallant cleek again!
With what unaccustomed speed would he strike the Golf-ball teed!
How it sounded on his metal at each stroke!
Not a flyer in the game such parabolas could claim,
At the place where the old cleek broke!

Was he cracked? I hardly think it. Did he slip? I do not know.
He had struck the ball for forty yards or more;
He was driving smooth and even, just as hard as he could go,
I had never seen him striking so before.
But I hardly can complain, for there must have been a strain
I had forced beyond the compass of a joke —
And no club, however strong, could have lasted over long
At the place where the old cleek broke!

There are men, both staid and sound, who hold it happiness unique,
At which only the irreverent can scoff,
That is reached by means of brassey, driver, niblick, spoon, or cleek,
And that life is not worth living without Golf.
Well, I hope it may be so; for myself I only know
That I never more shall try another stroke;
Yes, I've wearied of the sport, since a lesson I was taught,
At the place where the old cleek broke.

THE HOMES OF LONDON

(After Mrs. Hemans)

The happy homes of London,
How beautiful they stand!
The crowded human rookeries
That mar this Christian land.
Where cats in hordes upon the roof
For nightly music meet,
And the horse, with non-adhesive hoof,
Skates slowly down the street.

The merry homes of London!
Around bare hearths at night,
With hungry looks and sickly mien,
The children wail and fight.
There woman's voice is only heard
In shrill, abusive key,
And men can hardly speak a word
That is not blasphemy.

The healthy homes of London!
With weekly wifely wage,
The hopeless husbands, out of work,
Their daily thirst assuage.
The overcrowded tenement
Is comfortless and bare,
The atmosphere is redolent
Of hunger and despair.

The blessed homes of London!
By thousands, on her stones,
The helpless, homeless, destitute,
Do nightly rest their bones.
On pavements Piccadilly way,
In slumber like the dead,

Their wan pathetic forms they lay,
And make their humble bed.
The free, fair homes of London!
From all the thinking throng,
Who mourn a nation's apathy,
The cry goes up, 'How long!'
And those who love old England's name,
Her welfare and renown,
Can only contemplate with shame
The homes of London town.

THE HAPPIEST LAND

(After Longfellow)

There sat one day in a tavern,
Somewhere near Lincoln's Inn,
Six sleepy-looking working men,
Imbibing 'twos' of gin.

The Potman filled their tankards
With the liquor each preferred,
Torpid and somnolent they sat,
And spake not one rude word.

But when the potman vanished,
A brawny Scot stood forth;
'Change here,' quoth he, 'for Aberdeen,
Strathpeffer and the North!

'No country in the world, I ken,
With Scotia can compare,
With all the dour and canny men,
And the bonnie lasses there.