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A Satire Anthology
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Год написания книги
2017
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After they thus were stow’d away,
Some of the linen mended.
But Mrs. W. by disease’s dint,
Kept getting still more yellow in her tint,
When lo! her second son, like elder brother,
Marking the hue on the parental gills,
Brought a new charge of Anti-turmeric Pills,
To bleach the jaundiced visage of his mother;
Who took them – in her cupboard – like the other.
“Deeper and deeper still,” of course,
The fatal colour daily grew in force;
Till daughter W., newly come from Rome,
Acting the selfsame filial, pillial part,
To cure mamma, another dose brought home
Of Cockles – not the Cockles of her heart!
These going where the others went before,
Of course she had a very pretty store.
And then some hue of health her cheek adorning,
The medicine so good must be,
They brought her dose on dose, which she
Gave to the up-stairs cupboard, “night and morning”;
Till, wanting room at last for other stocks,
Out of the window one fine day she pitch’d
The pillage of each box, and quite enrich’d
The feed of Mister Burrell’s hens and cocks.
A little Barber of a bygone day,
Over the way,
Whose stock in trade, to keep the least of shops,
Was one great head of Kemble – that is, John —
Staring in plaster, with a Brutus on,
And twenty little Bantam fowls, with crops.
Little Dame W. thought, when through the sash
She gave the physic wings,
To find the very things
So good for bile, so bad for chicken rash,
For thoughtless cock and unreflecting pullet!
But while they gathered up the nauseous nubbles,
Each peck’d itself into a peck of troubles,
And brought the hand of Death upon its gullet.
They might as well have addled been, or rattled,
For long before the night – ah, woe betide
The pills! – each suicidal Bantam died,
Unfatted!
Think of poor Burrell’s shock,
Of Nature’s debt to see his hens all payers,
And laid in death as Everlasting Layers,
With Bantam’s small ex-Emperor, the Cock,
In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle,
Giving, undone by Cockle, a last cackle!
To see as stiff as stone his unlive stock,
It really was enough to move his block.
Down on the floor he dash’d, with horror big,
Mr. Bell’s third wife’s mother’s coachman’s wig;
And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble,
Burst out with natural emphasis enough,
And voice that grief made tremble,
Into that very speech of sad Macduff:
“What! all my pretty chickens and their dam,
At one fell swoop!
Just when I’d bought a coop,
To see the poor lamented creatures cram!”
After a little of this mood,
And brooding over the departed brood,
With razor he began to ope each craw,
Already turning black, as black as coals;
When lo! the undigested cause he saw —
“Pison’d by goles!”
To Mrs. W.’s luck a contradiction,
Her window still stood open to conviction;
And by short course of circumstantial labour,
He fix’d the guilt upon his adverse neighbour.
Lord! how he rail’d at her, declaring how,
He’d bring an action ere next term of Hilary;
Then, in another moment, swore a vow
He’d make her do pill-penance in the pillory!
She, meanwhile distant from the dimmest dream
Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard,
Lapp’d in a paradise of tea and cream;
When up ran Betty with a dismal scream:
“Here’s Mr. Burrell, ma’am, with all his farmyard!”
Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending,
With all the warmth that iron and a barber
Can harbour;
To dress the head and front of her offending,
The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking;
In short, he made her pay him altogether,
In hard cash, very hard, for ev’ry feather,
Charging, of course, each Bantam as a Dorking.
Nothing could move him, nothing make him supple,
So the sad dame, unpocketing her loss,
Had nothing left but to sit hands across,
And see her poultry “going down ten couple.”
Now birds by poison slain,
As venom’d dart from Indian’s hollow cane,
Are edible; and Mrs. W.’s thrift —
She had a thrifty vein —
Destined one pair for supper to make shift —
Supper, as usual, at the hour of ten.
Some of the linen mended.
But Mrs. W. by disease’s dint,
Kept getting still more yellow in her tint,
When lo! her second son, like elder brother,
Marking the hue on the parental gills,
Brought a new charge of Anti-turmeric Pills,
To bleach the jaundiced visage of his mother;
Who took them – in her cupboard – like the other.
“Deeper and deeper still,” of course,
The fatal colour daily grew in force;
Till daughter W., newly come from Rome,
Acting the selfsame filial, pillial part,
To cure mamma, another dose brought home
Of Cockles – not the Cockles of her heart!
These going where the others went before,
Of course she had a very pretty store.
And then some hue of health her cheek adorning,
The medicine so good must be,
They brought her dose on dose, which she
Gave to the up-stairs cupboard, “night and morning”;
Till, wanting room at last for other stocks,
Out of the window one fine day she pitch’d
The pillage of each box, and quite enrich’d
The feed of Mister Burrell’s hens and cocks.
A little Barber of a bygone day,
Over the way,
Whose stock in trade, to keep the least of shops,
Was one great head of Kemble – that is, John —
Staring in plaster, with a Brutus on,
And twenty little Bantam fowls, with crops.
Little Dame W. thought, when through the sash
She gave the physic wings,
To find the very things
So good for bile, so bad for chicken rash,
For thoughtless cock and unreflecting pullet!
But while they gathered up the nauseous nubbles,
Each peck’d itself into a peck of troubles,
And brought the hand of Death upon its gullet.
They might as well have addled been, or rattled,
For long before the night – ah, woe betide
The pills! – each suicidal Bantam died,
Unfatted!
Think of poor Burrell’s shock,
Of Nature’s debt to see his hens all payers,
And laid in death as Everlasting Layers,
With Bantam’s small ex-Emperor, the Cock,
In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle,
Giving, undone by Cockle, a last cackle!
To see as stiff as stone his unlive stock,
It really was enough to move his block.
Down on the floor he dash’d, with horror big,
Mr. Bell’s third wife’s mother’s coachman’s wig;
And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble,
Burst out with natural emphasis enough,
And voice that grief made tremble,
Into that very speech of sad Macduff:
“What! all my pretty chickens and their dam,
At one fell swoop!
Just when I’d bought a coop,
To see the poor lamented creatures cram!”
After a little of this mood,
And brooding over the departed brood,
With razor he began to ope each craw,
Already turning black, as black as coals;
When lo! the undigested cause he saw —
“Pison’d by goles!”
To Mrs. W.’s luck a contradiction,
Her window still stood open to conviction;
And by short course of circumstantial labour,
He fix’d the guilt upon his adverse neighbour.
Lord! how he rail’d at her, declaring how,
He’d bring an action ere next term of Hilary;
Then, in another moment, swore a vow
He’d make her do pill-penance in the pillory!
She, meanwhile distant from the dimmest dream
Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard,
Lapp’d in a paradise of tea and cream;
When up ran Betty with a dismal scream:
“Here’s Mr. Burrell, ma’am, with all his farmyard!”
Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending,
With all the warmth that iron and a barber
Can harbour;
To dress the head and front of her offending,
The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking;
In short, he made her pay him altogether,
In hard cash, very hard, for ev’ry feather,
Charging, of course, each Bantam as a Dorking.
Nothing could move him, nothing make him supple,
So the sad dame, unpocketing her loss,
Had nothing left but to sit hands across,
And see her poultry “going down ten couple.”
Now birds by poison slain,
As venom’d dart from Indian’s hollow cane,
Are edible; and Mrs. W.’s thrift —
She had a thrifty vein —
Destined one pair for supper to make shift —
Supper, as usual, at the hour of ten.
Другие электронные книги автора Carolyn Wells
Последний отзыв
Книга дельная. Без воды, приводятся реальные кейсы и способы их разрешения. Много практичных полезных советов и методик. Кое-что уже испробовала в дел...
Далее