——“passim
Palantes error certo de tramite pellit;
Ill sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit.”
—HORACE.
This day, beyond all contradiction,
This day is all thine own, Queen Fiction!
And thou art building castles boundless
Of groundless joys, and griefs as groundless;
Assuring Beauties that the border
Of their new dress is out of order,
And schoolboys that their shoes want tying,
And babies that their dolls are dying.
Lend me—lend me some disguise;
I will tell prodigious lies;
All who care for what I say
Shall be April Fools to-day!
First, I relate how all the nation
Is ruined by Emancipation;
How honest men are sadly thwarted,
How beads and faggots are imported,
How every parish church looks thinner,
How Peel has asked the Pope to dinner;
And how the Duke who fought the duel,
Keeps good King George on water gruel.
Thus I waken doubts and fears
In the Commons and the Peers;
If they care for what I say,
They are April Fools to-day!
Next, I announce to hall and hovel
Lord Asterisk’s unwritten novel;
It’s full of wit, and full of fashion,
And full of taste, and full of passion;
It tells some very curious histories,
Elucidates some charming mysteries,
And mingles sketches of society
With precepts of the soundest piety.
Thus I babble to the host
Who adore the Morning Post;
If they care for what I say,
They are April Fools to-day!
Then to the artist of my raiment
I hint his bankers have stopped payment;
And just suggest to Lady Locket
That somebody has picked her pocket;
And scare Sir Thomas from the City
By murmuring, in a tone of pity,
That I am sure I saw my Lady
Drive through the Park with Captain Grady.
Off my troubled victims go,
Very pale and very low;
If they care for what I say,
They are April Fools to-day!
I’ve sent the learned Doctor Trepan
To feel Sir Hubert’s broken knee-pan;
’Twill rout the Doctor’s seven senses
To find Sir Hubert charging fences!
I’ve sent a sallow parchment-scraper
To put Miss Tim’s last will on paper;
He’ll see her, silent as a mummy,
At whist, with her two maids and dummy.
Man of brief, and man of pill,
They will take it very ill;
If they care for what I say,
They are April Fools to-day!
And then to her whose smile shed light on
My weary lot last year at Brighton
I talk of happiness and marriage,
St. George’s, and a travelling carriage;
I trifle with my rosy fetters,
I rave about her witching letters,
And swear my heart shall do no treason
Before the closing of the season.
Thus I whisper in the ear
Of Louisa Windermere;
If she cares for what I say,
She’s an April Fool to-day!
And to the world I publish gaily,
That all things are improving daily;
That suns grow warmer, streamlets clearer,
And faith more warm, and love sincerer;
That children grow extremely clever,
That sin is seldom known, or never;
That gas, and steam, and education,
Are killing sorrow and starvation!
Pleasant visions!—but alas,
How those pleasant visions pass!
If you care for what I say,
You’re an April Fool to-day!
Last, to myself, when night comes round me,
And the soft chain of thought has bound me,
I whisper “Sir, your eyes are killing;
You owe no mortal man a shilling;
You never cringe for Star or Garter;
You’re much too wise to be a martyr;
And, since you must be food for vermin,
You don’t feel much desire for ermine!”
Wisdom is a mine, no doubt,
If one can but find it out;
But, whate’er I think or say,
I’m an April Fool to-day!