Songs, Ballads, and Other Poems by the late Thomas Haynes Bayly; Edited by his Widow. With A Memoir of the Author. In Two Volumes |
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THE POPPY. |
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 | Songs, Ballads, and Other Poems |  |
THE POPPY.
I
“Oh proud am I, exceeding proud, I've mustered the Elite!I'll read them my new Tragedy—no ordinary treat;
It has a deeply-stirring plot—the moment I commence,
They'll feel for my sweet heroine an interest intense;
It never lags, it never flags, it cannot fail to touch,
Indeed, I fear the sensitive may feel it over much.
But still a dash of pathos with my terrors I combine,
The bright reward of tragic Bard—the laurel will be mine!
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II
“Place chairs for all the company, and, Ma'am, I really thinkIf you don't send that child to bed, he will not sleep a wink;
I know he'll screech like anything before I've read a page.
My second act would terrify a creature of that age:
And should the darling, scared by me, become an imbecile,
Though flatter'd at the circumstance—how sorry I should feel!
What! won't you send the child to bed? well, Madam, we shall see;—
Pray take a chair, and now prepare the laurel crown for me.
III
“Have all got pocket-handkerchiefs? your tears will fall in streams;Place water near to sprinkle over any one who screams.
And pray, good people, recollect, when what I've said controls
Your sympathies, and actually harrows up your souls;
Remember, (it may save you all from suicide, or from fits,)
'Tis but a mortal man who opes the flood-gates of his wits!
Retain your intellects to trace my brightest gem, (my moral)
And, when I've done, I'm very sure you'll wreathe my brow with laurel.
IV
“Hem—Act the first, and scene the first—a wood—Bumrumptienters—Bumrumpti speaks, ‘And have I then escaped from my tormentors?
Revenge! revenge! oh, were they dead, and I a carrion crow,
I'd pick the flesh from off their bones, I'd sever toe from toe!
Shall fair Fryfritta, pledged to me, her plighted vow recall,
And wed with hated Snookums, or with any man at all!
No—rather perish earth and sea, the sky and—all the rest of it—
For wife to me she swore she'd be, and she must make the best of it.’”
V
Through five long acts—ay, very long, the happy Bard proceeds;Without a pause, without applause, scene after scene he reads!
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Not one of all his slumbering friends can either hear or see!
The anxious Chaperon is asleep! the Beau beside the fair!
The dog is sleeping on the rug! the cat upon the chair!
Old men and babes—the footman, too! oh, if we crown the Bard,
We'll twine for him the Poppy wreath—his only fit reward.
| Songs, Ballads, and Other Poems | |