Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3812/The Foiling of "The Blare"
(Suggested to a slightly Hibernian brain by the recent ebullition of generosity on the part of the popular press, which insures its readers against holiday accidents whilst boating and bathing.)
When I bolt from this city of vapour
To bite the salubrious breeze,
Do you know why I gambol and caper
And plunge with a shout in the seas
Twice the lad that I was
For a lark? It's because
I subscribe to that bountiful paper,
The Blare, if you please.
For I know that if currents are shifty,
If cramp should arrive unaware,
I shall die, but my end will be thrifty,
And my host (being also my heir)
Will be amply consoled
By the thought of the gold
(Which amounts to two hundred and fifty)
He'll get from The Blare.
"Pray take from your forehead those creases,"
I cry to my friend on the yacht,
"I admit that the mainsail's in pieces
And most of the sheets in a knot;
But remember that if
We go ponk on that cliff
It's The Blare will be paying your nieces
A nice little pot."
But whatever may crash into cruisers
Or wherries when I am afloat,
When the waves have destroyed me like bruisers,
I call on my country to note,
If The Blare should pretend,
When I've passed to my end,
I was one of its constant perusers,
It lies in its throat.
To my tenantless rooms in the City
The rags have been sent, and it's there
That I'll burn them unopened and gritty
Or, if (and it's little I care)
I am whelmed in the wave,
I shall laugh from my grave
At the blow that I've dealt the banditti
Who publish The Blare.