Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3809/The Prima Donna
[The répertoire of Summer is here made to embrace the prelude of many good things that come within the wider scope of the holiday season.]
Good gentlemen, good gentlemen, we crave your kind attention!
Here's Summer, at your service (till you bid the lady stop);
Good gentlemen, she's songs for you—'tis time to drop dissension;
'Tis time to cut the cackle and to close awhile the shop;
For stags shall be in Badenoch, and Kent hath twined the hop.
Yes, songs for every son o' you, and all have silver linings!
Good gentlemen, good gentlemen, it's close, your London air;
If I'm mixing up the proverbs, 'tis because my reads run shining
Through the fret of far-off pine-woods, and I'm wishful to be there;
Or at hand among the hop-poles when the vines are trailing fair.
Good gentlemen, the prologue! Here's programme most attractive:
She's songs for everyone o' you—oh, rare the tunes and rich!
Here's hackneyed Devon Harbours (but the pollock's biting active);
Here's Evening (rise in Hampshire); here's The Roller on the Pitch;
And music in the lot o' them—it doesn't matter which.
We've long White Roads o' Brittany and pretty Wayside Posies,
Blue Bays (beneath the undercliff—the white sails crawling by);
We've Rabbits in a Hedgerow (how the bustling Clumber noses);
We've Grouse Across the Valley (crashing crumpled from the sky);
And magics in each note of her—it doesn't matter why.
Here's Salmon Songs and Shrimping Songs, according to your pocket;
Here's Hopping (with a lurcher—twice as useful as a gun
For the fat young August pheasants that'll never live to rocket);
Here's a jolly Song o' Golf Balls; here's the tune of Cubs that Run;
We've something for each Jack o' you, for every mother's son.
Good gentlemen, good gentlemen, we crave your kind permission!
Here's Summer, at your service, and she'd sing you on your ways
The marching songs of morning and the Road that fits the Vision,
The mellow songs of twilight and the gold September haze;
God rest you all, good gentlemen, and send you pleasant days.