CAROLS OF COCKAYNE.

The following trifles have already made their appearance in various periodicals. The limit of their pretension is obvious from their individual brevity and collective title; with few exceptions, they were intended simply as drawing-room songs. Without aspiring to the high level of the days when Praed, Bayly, Hood, Fitzgerald, Theodore Hook, and the two Smiths wrote for music, may I flatter myself that these Carols are at least equal in point of taste (if not in point of humour) to certain light and lively ballads that are at present popular through the medium of the music-halls?

Some readers will probably think the name of this book suspiciously similar to that of Mr Frederick Locker's charming London Lyrics. Let me anticipate a charge of plagiarism by observing that Mr. Locker himself was kind enough to send me the suggestion for my present title.

To those gentlemen who have given me permission to republish various verses in this collection, I am sincerely obliged.

H. S. L.

CAROLS OF COCKAYNE.

THE TWINS.

N form and feature, face and limb,

I grew so like my brother

That folks got taking me for him

And each for one another.

It puzzled all our kith and kin,

It reach'd an awful pitch;

For one of us was born a twin

And not a soul knew which.

One day (to make the matter worse),

Before our names were fix'd,

As we were being wash'd by nurse,

We got completely mix'd.

And thus, you see, by Fate's decree,

(Or rather nurse's whim),

My brother John got christen'd me,

And I got christen'd him.

This fatal likeness even dogg'd

My footsteps when at school,

And I was always getting flogg'd—

For John turn'd out a fool.

I put this question hopelessly

To every one I knew,—

What would you do, if you were me.

To prove that you were you?

Our close resemblance turn'd the tide

Of my domestic life;

For somehow my Intended bride

Became my brother's wife.

In short, year after year the same

Absurd mistakes went on;

And when I died—the neighbours came

And buried brother John!

(Published with music by Messrs Cramer.)

UN PAS QUI COÛTE.

I'VE a genius or a talent—I perceive it pretty clearly

In pursuing an ambition or in climbing up a tree—

For never quite attaining, but attaining very nearly

To my aspiration's altitude, whatever it may be.

Tis a faculty that haunts me with an obstinate persistence,

For I felt it in my boyhood, and I feel it in my prime,—

All the efforts and endeavours I have made in my existence

Have invariably ended "but a step from the sublime."

As a boy I made a tender of my tenderest affection,

In a lovely little sonnet to the fairest of the fair:

(Though nothing but a youngster, I've preserved the recollection

Of her tyranny, her beauty, and the way she did her hair.)

She was married, I remember, to a person in the City,—

I consider'd him remarkably obtrusive at the time;

So I quitted my enslaver with a lofty look of pity,

For I felt my situation "but a step from the sublime."

Being confident that Cupid was a little gay deceiver,

I forgot my disappointment in a struggle after Fame;

I had caught the rage of writing as a child may catch a fever,

So I took to making verses as a way to make a name.

When I publish'd a collection of my efforts as a writer—

With a minimum of reason and a maximum of rhyme—

I am proud to say that nobody could well have been politer

Than the critics, for they, call'd it "but a step from the

sublime."

I was laudably ambitious to extend my reputation,

And I plann'd a pretty novel on a pretty novel plan;

I would make it independent both of sin and of "sensation,"

And my villain should be pictured as a persecuted man.

For your Bulwers and your Braddons and your Collinses

may grovel

In an atmosphere of horror and a wilderness of crime;

Twas for me to controvert them, and I did so in a novel

Which was commonly consider'd "but a step from the

sublime."

I have master'd metaphysics—I have mounted on the pinions

Both of Painting and of Music—and I rather think I know

Ev'ry nook and ev'ry corner of Apollo's whole dominions,

From the top of Mount Parnassus down to Paternoster Row.

I have had my little failures, I have had my great successes—

And Parnassus, I assure you, is a weary hill to climb;

But the lowest and the meanest of my enemies confesses

That he very often thinks me "but a step from the sublime."

THE GIFT OF THE GAB.

A LECTURE ON ELOCUTION.

OU have read how Demosthenes walk'd

on the beach,

With his mouth full of pebbles, rehears-

ing a speech—

Till the shell-fish and sea-gulls pro-

nounced him a bore,

And the sea met his gravest remarks

with a roar.

In fact, if you ever learnt Greek, you 'll confess

That it's hardly the right kind of tongue to impress

An intelligent lobster or well-inform'd crab,

With the deepest respect for the Gift of the Gab.

Still Eloquence gives men a wonderful power,

And it often strikes me, after sitting an hour

At a lecture on something I don't understand,

That the Gift of the Gab is decidedly grand.

Indeed, I am frequently heard to declare,

If the Queen of the Fairies would answer my prayer,

I should instantly drop on my knees to Queen Mab,

Crying, Grant me, oh grant me, the Gift of the Gab.

If you 'd hear the true summit of Eloquence reach'd

Go to church when a charity-sermon is preach'd;

Where, with hands in his pockets and tears in his eyes,

Ev'ry soft-hearted sinner contributes and cries.

I think, if you look in the plate, you'll opine

That the sermon you heard was uncommonly fine,

And that ev'ry Oxonian and ev'ry Cantab

Ought to cultivate early the Gift of the Gab.

But it's after a dinner at Freemasons' Hall

That the orator's talent shines brightest of all;

When his eye becomes glazed and his voice becomes thick,

And he's had so much hock he can only say hie!

So the company leave him to slumber and snore

Till he's put in a hat and convey'd to the door;

And he finds, upon reaching his home in a cab,

That his wife rather shines in the Gift of the Gab.

Then there's Gab in the senate and Gab at the bar,

But I fear their description would lead me too far;

And (last but not least) there is Gab on the stage.

Which I couldn't exhaust if I sang for an age.

But, if there are matters that puzzle you still,

You may take up an Enfield and go through a drill,

Which will teach you much more than a hurried confab

With regard to that art call'd the Gift of the Gab.

BEHIND THE SCENES.

LONG, long ago I had an aunt

Who took me to the play:

An act of kindness that I shan't

Forget for many a day.

I was a youngster at the time,

Just verging on my teens,

And fancied that it must be "prime"

To go behind the scenes.

I ventured to express the same

In quite a candid way,

And shock'd my aunt—a sober dame,

Though partial to the play.

'Twas just the moment when Macbeth

(Whose voice resembled Kean's)

Had finished planning Duncan's death,

And rushed behind the scenes.

I recollect that evening yet,

And how my aunt was grieved;

And, oh! I never shall forget

The lecture I received.

It threw a light upon the class

Of knowledge that one gleans

By being privileged to pass

His time behind the scenes.

The Heroine I worshipp'd then

Was fifty, I should think;

My Lord the commonest of men,'

My Lover fond of drink.

The Fairies I believed so fair

Were not by any means

The kind of people one would care

To meet behind the scenes.

I cannot boast that I enjoy

The stage-illusion still;

I'm growing far too old a boy

To laugh or cry at will.

But I can cast a critic's eye

On mimic kings and queens,

And nothing ever makes me sigh

To get behind the scenes.

Ah! shallow boastings—false regrets!

The world is but a stage

Where Man, poor player, struts and frets

Carols of Cockayne / The Third Edition, 1874

CAROLS OF COCKAYNE.

By Henry S. Leigh.

With Illustrations By Alfred Concanen.

The Third Edition.

Chatto and Windus,

1874.

TO

TOM HOOD, ESQUIRE

THESE VERSES ARE DEDICATED

BY

HIS FRIEND AND WORKFELLOW,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

H. S. L.

CAROLS OF COCKAYNE.

THE TWINS.

UN PAS QUI COÛTE.

THE GIFT OF THE GAB.

A LECTURE ON ELOCUTION.

BEHIND THE SCENES.