Page:Poets of John Company.djvu/51

Then clubs oft assemble in commemoration
Of some great event, some of strange designation!
Amongst them, The Lunatics, who modest elves,
Have taken this Lunatic title themselves!
They meet once a month, when the Moon's at it's full,
With bumpers of claret their sorrows to lull.
But I doubt much indeed, if the day of the feast
Of all lucid intervals—is not the least.
How many there'd be at the club to imbibe,
If all who are Lunatic would but subscribe!

*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*
To those who're accustomed to ride on the course,
An Arab's considered the most showy horse.
Rotten Row of a Sunday ne'er made the display
Nor boasted the beauty seen there every day!
Where soon as it's sun-set, the ladies resort
By Hygeian gusts their weak spirits support,
In Chariots, Barouches and Sociables too.
All open of course, to ensure better view,
Or what is more likely, and what my lines mean,
They are open that they may both see and be seen!
Here friends meet together, converse as they ride,
And gentlemen follow the Barouche's side,
Who whilst they're inhaling the genial air,
Are talking soft nonsense besides to the fair!

*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*
We have newspapers too, as you have in the West,
Each editor striving to prove his the best,
With pages enough for a Counsellor's brief,
Tho' some of them still might turn o'er a new leaf!
The Journal, Gazette, The Harkaru and Post,
The India Gazette, and the awful nam'd Ghost.
The columns of some, we peruse but with pain,
Perceiving the feuds which they daily contain.
No paper appears but produces new schism.
Or charges perhaps of fresh radicalism,
But what should we do, we'd be bad off indeed.
If we had not a paper of some kind to read.