I am pacing Pall Mall in a wrapt reverie,—
I am thinking if Sophy is thinking of me,—
When up creeps a ragged and shivering wretch,
Who seems to be well on his way to Jack Ketch.
He has got a bad face, and a shocking bad hat,
A comb in his fist, and he sees I'm a flat;
For he says, "Buy a comb, it's a fine un to wear;
Just try it, my Lord, through your whiskers and 'air."
He eyes my gold chain, as if anxious to crib it;
He looks just as if he'd been blown from a gibbet.
I pause ... and pass on—and beside the club fire
I settle that Sophy is all I desire.
As I walk from the club, and am deep in a strophe,
Which rolls upon all that's delicious in Sophy,
I half tumble over an "object" unnerving—
So frightful a hag must be "highly deserving."
She begs—my heart's moved—but I've much circumspection;
I stifle remorse with the soothing reflection
That cases of vice are by no means a rarity—
The worst vice of all's indiscriminate charity.
Am I right? How I wish that our clerical guides
Would settle this question—and others besides!
For always to harden one's fiddlestrings thus,
If it's wholesome for beggars, is hurtful for us.
A few minutes later—how pleasant for me!—
I am seated by Sophy at five-o'clock tea:
Her table is loaded, for when a girl marries,
What cartloads of rubbish they send her from Barry's!
"There's a present for you!" Yes, my sweet Sophy's thrift
Has enabled the darling to buy me a gift.
And she slips in my hand—the delightfully sly Thing—
A paper-weight formed of a bronze lizard writhing.
"What a charming cadeau! and," says I, "so well made;
But are you aware, you extravagant jade,
That in casting this metal a live, harmless lizard
Was cruelly tortured in ghost and in gizzard?"
"Pooh, pooh," says my lady (I ought to defend her,
Her head is too giddy, her heart's much too tender),
"Hopgarten protests they've no feeling—and so
It was nothing but muscular movement, you know."
Thinks I—when I've said au revoir, and depart—
(A Comb in my pocket, a Weight at my heart),—
And when wretched mendicants writhe, we've a notion
That begging is only a muscular motion.