The Motley Muse (Rhymes for the Times)

Bygone bards in baleful ballads would betoken Worlds of wretchedness and globes compact of gloom; Pensive poets of the past have sung or spoken Of the misery of mortals' daily d...

Ye citizens of common clay Who, squinting in a painful way, Remove (with grimy hands and grey) The smuts upon your noses, Come, follow me to Dover Street Where, any moment, we m...

While Germans eat flesh that is said to be equine, And Chinamen batten on birds' nests and dogs, While Frenchmen with _vin ordinaire_ (such a weak wine!) Ingurgitate molluscs an...

If for solitude you feel a partiality, If you chance to be unsociably inclined, If (like other men of British nationality) You abominate the presence of your kind; If you take y...

Pall Mall was a sober and dignified street In the days (say) of Dickens or Marryat, Where statesmen their peers would with courtesy greet, Where the senator sauntered on leisure...

Observe the elite, staring into the street, Through that famous elliptical casement; How coldly they eye all the friends who pass by, With a look of self-conscious effacement! T...

While clerks lunch at Lockhart's or Lyons', And labourers meet at some 'pub,' Society's celibate scions Resort to the Bachelors' Club; For here all the members elected Belong to...

Though clubs without number are suited to slumber, How few (as has often been noted) To rest and reposing, to dreaming and dozing, Are quite so completely devoted As that which...

Dignified, austere, infestive, Stands the stately Athenaeum, With an atmosphere suggestive Of a mausoleum. Freezing silence reigns within (You can hear the falling pin!) And the...

How soft those whiskered waiters tread, Their dishes dexterously handing! 'Twould seem (as some one aptly said) As though a nobleman lay dead Upon an upper landing, In such tran...