BEGGARS.

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.