The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Part 244

More money! more churches!--oh Nimrod, hadst thou 'Stead of _Tower_-extension, some shorter way gone-- Hadst thou known by what methods we mount to heaven _now_, And tried _Church_-extension, the feat had been done!

[1] The Birmans may not buy the sacred marble in ma.s.s but must purchase figures of the deity already made.--_SYMES_.

MUSINGS.

SUGGESTED BY THE LATE PROMOTION OF MRS. NETHERCOAT.

"The widow of Nethercoat is appointed jailer of Loughrea, in the room of her deceased husband."--_Limerick Chronicle_.

Whether as queens or subjects, in these days, Women seem formed to grace alike each station:-- As Captain Flaherty gallantly says, "You ladies, are the lords of the creation!"

Thus o'er my mind did prescient visions float Of all that matchless woman yet may be; When hark! in rumors less and less remote, Came the glad news o'er Erin's ambient sea, The important news--that Mrs. Nethercoat Had been appointed jailer of Loughrea; Yes, mark it, History--Nethercoat is dead, And Mrs. N. now rules his realm instead; Hers the high task to wield the uplocking keys, To rivet rogues and reign o'er Rapparees!

Thus, while your bl.u.s.terers of the Tory school Find Ireland's sanest sons so hard to rule, One meek-eyed matron in Whig doctrines nurst Is all that's askt to curb the maddest, worst!

Show me the man that dares with blushless brow Prate about Erin's rage and riot now; Now, when her temperance forms her sole excess; When long-loved whiskey, fading from her sight, "Small by degrees and beautifully less,"

Will soon like other _spirits_ vanish quite; When of red coats the number's grown so small, That soon, to cheer the warlike parson's eyes, No glimpse of scarlet will be seen at all, Save that which she of Babylon supplies;-- Or, at the most, a corporal's guard will be, Of Ireland's _red_ defence the sole remains; While of its jails bright woman keeps the key, And captive Paddies languish in her chains!

Long may such lot be Erin's, long be mine!

Oh yes--if even this world, tho' bright it s.h.i.+ne, In Wisdom's eyes a prison-house must be, At least let woman's hand our fetters twine, And blithe I'll sing, more joyous than if free, The Nethercoats, the Nethercoats for me!

INTENDED TRIBUTE

TO THE AUTHOR OF AN ARTICLE IN THE LAST NUMBER OF _The Quarterly Review_, ENt.i.tLED "ROMANISM IN IRELAND."

It glads us much to be able to say, That a meeting is fixt for some early day, Of all such dowagers--_he_ or _she_-- (No matter the s.e.x, so they dowagers be,) Whose opinions concerning Church and State From about the time of the Curfew date-- Stanch sticklers still for days bygone, And admiring _them_ for their rust alone-- To whom if we would a leader give, Worthy their tastes conservative, We need but some mummy-statesman raise, Who was pickled and potted in Ptolemy's days; For _that's_ the man, if waked from his shelf, To conserve and swaddle this world like himself.

Such, we're happy to state, are the old _he_-dames Who've met in committee and given their names (In good hieroglyphics), with kind intent To pay some handsome compliment To their sister author, the nameless he, Who wrote, in the last new _Quarterly_, That charming a.s.sault upon Popery; An article justly prized by them As a perfect antediluvian gem-- The work, as Sir Sampson Legend would say, Of some "fellow the Flood couldn?t wash away."[1]

The fund being raised, there remained but to see What the dowager-author's gift was to be.

And here, I must say, the Sisters Blue Showed delicate taste and judgment too.

For finding the poor man suffering greatly From the awful stuff he has thrown up lately-- So much so indeed to the alarm of all, As to bring on a fit of what doctors call The Antipapistico-monomania (I'm sorry with such a long word to detain ye), They've acted the part of a kind physician, By suiting their gift to the patient's condition; And as soon as 'tis ready for presentation, We shall publish the facts for the gratification Of this highly-favored and Protestant nation.

Meanwhile, to the great alarm of his neighbors, He still continues his _Quarterly_ labors; And often has strong No-Popery fits, Which frighten his old nurse out of her wits.

Sometimes he screams, like Scrub in the play,[2]

"Thieves! Jesuits! Popery!" night and day; Takes the Printer's Devil for Doctor Dens, And s.h.i.+es at him heaps of High-church pens;[3]

Which the Devil (himself a touchy Dissenter) Feels all in his hide, like arrows, enter.

'Stead of swallowing wholesome stuff from the druggist's, He _will_ keep raving of "Irish Thuggists;"[4]

Tells us they all go murdering for fun From rise of morn till set of sun, Pop, pop, as fast as a minute-gun![5]

If askt, how comes it the gown and ca.s.sock are Safe and fat, mid this general ma.s.sacre-- How hap sit that Pat's own population But swarms the more for this trucidation-- He refers you, for all such memoranda, To the "_archives of the Propaganda_!"

This is all we've got, for the present, to say-- But shall take up the subject some future day.

[1] See Congreve's "Love for Love."

[2] "Beaux' Stratagem."

[3] "Pray, may we ask, has there been any rebellious movement of Popery in Ireland, since the planting of the Ulster colonies, in which something of the kind was not visible among the Presbyterians of the north."-- _Quarterly Review_.

[4] "Lord Lorton, for instance, who, for clearing his estate of a village of Irish Thuggists," etc.--_Quarterly Review_.

[5] "Observe how murder after murder is committed like minute-guns."-- _Ibid_.

GRAND DINNER OF TYPE AND CO.

A POOR POET'S DREAM.[1]

As I sate in my study, lone and still, Thinking of Sergeant Talfourd's Bill, And the speech by Lawyer Sugden made, In spirit congenial, for "the Trade,"

Sudden I sunk to sleep and lo!

Upon Fancy's reinless nightmare flitting, I found myself, in a second or so, At the table of Messrs. Type and Co.

With a goodly group of diners sitting;-- All in the printing and publis.h.i.+ng line, Drest, I thought, extremely fine, And sipping like lords their rosy wine; While I in a state near inanition With coat that hadn't much nap to spare (Having just gone into its second edition), Was the only wretch of an author there.

But think, how great was my surprise, When I saw, in casting round my eyes, That the dishes, sent up by Type's she-cooks, Bore all, in appearance, the shape of books; Large folios--G.o.d knows where they got 'em, In these _small_ times--at top and bottom; And quartos (such as the Press provides For no one to read them) down the sides.

Then flasht a horrible thought on my brain, And I said to myself, "'Tis all too plain, "Like those well known in school quotations, "Who ate up for dinner their own relations, "I see now, before me, smoking here, "The bodies and bones of my brethren dear;-- "Bright sons of the lyric and epic Muse, "All cut up in cutlets, or hasht in stews; "Their _works_, a light thro' ages to go,-- "_Themselves_, eaten up by Type and Co.!"

While thus I moralized, on they went, Finding the fare most excellent: And all so kindly, brother to brother, Helping the tidbits to each other: "A slice of Southey let me send you"-- "This cut of Campbell I recommend you"-- "And here, my friends, is a treat indeed, "The immortal Wordsworth frica.s.seed!"

Thus having, the cormorants, fed some time, Upon joints of poetry--all of the prime-- With also (as Type in a whisper averred it) "Cold prose on the sideboard, for such as preferred it"-- They rested awhile, to recruit their force, Then pounced, like kites, on the second course, Which was singing-birds merely--Moore and others-- Who all went the way of their larger brothers; And, numerous now tho' such songsters be, 'Twas really quite distressing to see A whole dishful of Toms--Moore, Dibdin, Bayly,-- Bolted by Type and Co. so gayly!

Nor was this the worst--I shudder to think What a scene was disclosed when they came to drink.

The warriors of Odin, as every one knows, Used to drink out of skulls of slaughtered foes: And Type's old port, to my horror I found, Was in skulls of bards sent merrily round.

And still as each well-filled cranium came, A health was pledged to its owner's name; While Type said slyly, midst general laughter, "We eat them up first, then drink to them after."

There was _no_ standing this--incensed I broke From my bonds of sleep, and indignant woke, Exclaiming, "Oh shades of other times, "Whose voices still sound, like deathless chimes, "Could you e'er have foretold a day would be, "When a dreamer of dreams should live to see "A party of sleek and honest John Bulls "Hobn.o.bbing each other in poets' skulls!"

[1] Written during the late agitation of the question of Copyright.