“i’ll pond—i’ll tail him!”—in a voice of thunder
he recommenced his fury and his fuss,
loud, open-mouth’d, and wedded to his blunder,
like one of those great guns that end in buss.
“i’ll teach him to write ponds and tails to us!”
but while so menacing this-that-and-t’others,
his wife broke in with certain truths, as thus:
“men are not women—fathers can’t be mothers,—
females are females”—and a few such others.
so saying, with rough nudges, willy-nilly,
she hustled him outside the chamber-door,
looking, it must be own’d, a little silly;
and then she did as the carinthian boor
serves (goldsmith says) the traveller that’s poor!
[pg 319]
id est, she shut him in the outer space,
with just as much apology—no more—
as boreas would present in such a case,
for slamming the street door right in your face.
and now, the secrets of the sex thus kept,
what passed in that important tête-à-tête
’twixt dam and daughter, nobody except
paul pry, or his twin brother, could narrate—
so turn we to lorenzo, left of late,
in front of mrs. snelling’s sugar’d snacks,
in such a very waspish stinging state,
but now at the old dragon, stretch’d on racks,
fretting, and biting down his nails to tacks;
because that new fast four-inside—the comet,
instead of keeping its appointed time,
had deviated some few minutes from it,
a thing with all astronomers a crime,
and he had studied in that lore sublime;
nor did his heat get any less or shorter
for pouring upon passion’s unslaked lime
a well-grown glass of cogniac and water,
mix’d stiff as starch by the old dragon’s daughter.
at length, “fair ellen” sounding with a flourish,
the comet came all bright, bran new, and smart:
meanwhile the melody conspired to nourish
the hasty spirit in lorenzo’s heart,
and soon upon the roof he “topped his part,”
which never had a more impatient man on,
wishing devoutly that the steeds would start
like lightning greased,—or, as at ballyshannon
sublimed, “greased lightning shot out of a cannon.”
[pg 320]
for, ever since the letter left his hand,
his mind had been in vacillating motion,
dodge-dodging like a fluster’d crab on land,
that cannot ask its way, and has no notion
if right or left leads to the german ocean—
hatred and love by turns enjoy’d monopolies,
till, like a doctor following his own potion,
before a learned pig could spell acropolis,
he went and booked himself for our metropolis.
“oh, for a horse,” or rather four,—“with wings!”
for so he put the wish into the plural—
no relish he retained for country things,
he could not join felicity with rural,
his thoughts were all with london and the mural,
where architects—not paupers—heap and pile stones;
or with the horses’ muscles, called the crural,
how fast they could macadamize the milestones
which pass’d as tediously as gall or bile stones.
blind to the picturesque, he ne’er perceived
in nature one artistical fine stroke;
for instance, how that purple hill relieved
the beggar-woman in the gipsy-poke,
and how the red cow carried off her cloak;
or how the aged horse, so gaunt and grey,
threw off a noble mass of beech and oak!
or, how the tinker’s ass, beside the way,
came boldly out from a white cloud—to bray!
such things have no delight for worried men,
that travel full of care and anxious smart:
coachmen and horses, are your artists then:
just try a team of draughtsmen with the dart,
take shee, for instance, etty, jones, and hart,
[pg 321]
let every neck be put into its noose,
then tip ’em on the flank to make ’em start,
and see how they will draw!—four screws let loose
would make a difference—or i’m a goose!
nor cared he more about the promised crops,
if oats were looking up, or wheat was laid,
for flies in turnip, or a blight in hops,
or how the barley prosper’d or decay’d;
in short, no items of the farming trade.
peas, beans, tares, ’taters, could his mind beguile;
nor did he answer to the servant maid,
that always asked at every other mile,
“where do we change, sir?” with her sweetest smile.
