The political and occasional poems of Winthrop Mackworth Praed ::

I've canvassed, dear Charles, since we parted,
Our friends in this beautiful town;
But really, I'm quite broken-hearted
To find the good cause going down.
Some pestilent, profligate Tory
Has done all the mischief, no doubt;
The voters are all in one story;
They ask what the war is about.

I tell them of Gatton and Sarum;
I cut up the Bishops and Peers;
I ring the old useful alarum
Of negroes and whips in their ears;

208

I point out the manifold mercies
We've had since Sir Robert went out:
They all put their hands on their purses
And ask what the war is about.

When they drink my success at my dinners,
I speak in an eloquent strain;
And then, sir, the weavers and spinners
Cry “bravo!” and “bravo!” again;
But just in the midst of the cheering
Some brute at the bottom will shout—
“We all of us want to be hearing
What all this here war is about!”

Some come with inquisitive faces,
Some come with inquisitive tones;
One grumbles—another grimaces—
Here pamphlets are flying—there stones.
If I go to a market or masquing,
If I'm one at a row or a rout,
Belles, butchers, all long to be asking—
Ah me! what the war is about.

The Aldermen pause in their feeding
To babble of dam and of dyke;
My Lady insists upon reading
The lines in her book on Van Speyk

209

Sir Andrew jumps up to abuse me,
In spite of his years and his gout,
And his little girl lisps, to amuse me,
“Tell Ma what the war is about.”

We'll carry poor Palmerston through, Charles,
Whatever the country may say;
But his Lordship, between me and you, Charles,
Behaves in a very odd way;
He's clever at jesting and joking,
Which surely we might do without;
But he won't—it's extremely provoking—
Explain what the war is about!

University of Virginia Library

XXVI. AN EPISTLE

FROM AN OLD ELECTIONEERER TO A YOUNG SECRETARY.