Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, July 16, 1892

Excerpt

TO THE FIRST BATHING-MACHINE.

(After Wordsworth.)

O blank new-comer! I have seen,

I see thee with a start:

So gentle looking a Machine,

Infernal one thou art!

When first the sun feels rather hot,

Or even rather warm,

From some dim, hibernating spot

Rolls forth thy clumsy form.

Perhaps thou babblest to the sea

Of sunshine and of flowers;

Thou bringest but a thought to me

Of such bad quarter hours.

I, grasping tightly, pale with fear,

Thy very narrow bench,

Thou, bounding on in wild career,

All shake, and jolt, and wrench.

Till comes an unexpected stop;

My forehead hits the door,

And I, with cataclysmic flop,

Lie on thy sandy floor.

Then, dressed in Nature's simplest style,

I, blushing, venture out;

And find the sea is still a mile

Away, or thereabout.

Blithe little children on the sand

Laugh out with childish glee;

Their nurses, sitting near at hand,

All giggling, stare at me.

Unnerved, unwashed, I rush again

Within thy tranquil shade,

And wait until the rising main

Shall banish child and maid.

Thy doors I dare not open now,

Thy windows give no view;

'Tis late; I will not bathe, I vow:

I dress myself anew.

Set wide the door. All round is sea!

"Hold tight, Sir!" voices call,

And in the water, jerked from thee,

I tumble, clothes and all!

O blessed thing! this earth we pace

Thy haunt should never be,

A quite unmentionable place

That is fit home for thee!

ELECTION INTELLIGENCE.

Brilliant Elector (at the Polling Station). "IT'S A STOUTISH KOIND OF A MAN, WITH A BALD 'EAD, AS AR WISHES TO VOTE FOR, BUT AR 'M BLESSED IF AR KNOW 'IS NAÄME!!"

It is with the greatest possible pleasure that Mr. Punch presents to his readers the following example of the New Poetry. It is taken from a collection entitled "Rhymes of the Ropes" These Rhymes are intended to illustrate the everyday life of the British prize-fighter, his simple joys, his manly sorrows, his conversational excellences, and his indomitable pluck. The author has never been a prize-fighter himself, but he claims for these Rhymes the merit of absolute truth in every detail. In any case it is quite certain that every critic who reviews the volume will say of it, that no previous book has ever presented to us, with such complete fidelity, the British prize-fighter as he lives and moves, and has his being—not the gaudy, over-dressed and over-jewelled creature whom the imagination of the public pictures as haunting the giddy palaces of pleasure, and adored by the fairest of the fair, but the rough, uncouth, simple creature to whom we Britons owe our reputation for pluck and stamina. How the critic knows this, never having been a prize-fighter himself, and never having associated with them, is a question which it might be difficult to answer. But, nevertheless, the critic will guarantee the "Rhymes of the Ropes."

If some of Mr. Punch's readers, while recognising the force and go of the lines, shall think them tant soit peu coarse and brutal, the fault must not be ascribed to Mr. Punch, but to the brilliant young author....