It is sometimes alleged that great valour he showed When he chased a mad cow for three miles on the road; But there’s also another account of the hunt With a four-legged pursuer, a biped in front.
If your house has been robbed and his counsel you seek He’s sure to look in—in the course of the week, When his massive appearance will comfort your cook, Though he fails in the bringing of culprits to book.
His _obiter dicta_ on life and the law Set our ribald young folk in a frequent guffaw; But the elders repose an implicit belief In so splendid a product of beer and of beef.
He’s the strongest and solidest man in the place, Nothing—short of mad cattle—can quicken his pace; His moustache would do credit to any dragoon, And his voice is as deep as a double bassoon.
His complexion is perfect, his uniform neat, He rivets all eyes as he stalks down the street; And I doubt if his critics will ever complain Of his being a little deficient in brain.
For he’s more than a man; he’s a part of the map; His going would cause a deplorable gap; And the village would suffer as heavy a slump As it would from the loss of the old parish pump.
Published the year I went to school— The second of life’s seven ages— How fragrant of Victorian rule Are these forgotten pages! When meat and fruit were still uncanned; When good CHARLES DICKENS still was writing; And SWINBURNE’S poetry was banned As rather too exciting.
No murmurs of impending strife Were heard, no dark suggestions hinted; Our novelists still looked on life Through spectacles rose-tinted; And Paris, in those giddy years, Still laughed at OFFENBACH and SCHNEIDER, Blind to the doom of blood and tears, With none to warn or guide her.
The index and the authors’ names, Their stories and their lucubrations, Recall old literary aims And faded reputations; We wonder at the influence That SALA’S florid periods had on His fellows, and the vogue immense Of versatile Miss BRADDON.
And yet I read _Aurora Floyd_ In youth with rapture quite unholy— Not in the way that I enjoyed Mince-pies or roly-poly; While “G. A. S.” appeared to me Like a Leonid fresh from starland, Not the young lion that we see Portrayed in _Friendship’s Garland_.
And there are tinklings of the lute In orthodox decorous fashion, But altogether destitute Of “elemental” passion; And illustrations which refrain From all that verges on the shady, But glorify the whiskered swain, The lachrymose young lady.