Written by
Robert William Service |
My daughter Jane makes dresses
For beautiful Princesses;
But though she's plain is Jane,
Of needlework she's vain,
And makes such pretty things
For relatives of Kings.
She reads the picture papers
Where Royalties cut capers,
And often says to me:
'How wealthy they must be,
That nearly every day
A new robe they can pay.
'
Says I: 'If your Princesses
Could fabric pretty dresses,
Though from a throne they stem
I would think more of them.
Peeress and shopgirl are
To my mind on a par.
'
Says Jane: 'But for their backing
I might be sewing sacking.
Instead, I work with joy
In exquisite employ,
Embroidering rich dresses
For elegant Princesses .
.
.
Damn social upsetters
Who criticise their betters!'
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Written by
Victor Hugo |
("La flamme par ton ordre, O roi!")
{XXIII., November, 1825.}
Thy will, O King, is done! Lighting but to consume,
The roar of the fierce flames drowned even the shouts and shrieks;
Reddening each roof, like some day-dawn of bloody doom,
Seemed they in joyous flight to dance about their wrecks.
Slaughter his thousand giant arms hath tossed on high,
Fell fathers, husbands, wives, beneath his streaming steel;
Prostrate, the palaces, huge tombs of fire, lie,
While gathering overhead the vultures scream and wheel!
Died the pale mothers, and the virgins, from their arms,
O Caliph, fiercely torn, bewailed their young years' blight;
With stabs and kisses fouled, all their yet quivering charms,
At our fleet coursers' heels were dragged in mocking flight.
Lo! where the city lies mantled in pall of death;
Lo! where thy mighty hand hath passed, all things must bend!
Priests prayed, the sword estopped blaspheming breath,
Vainly their cheating book for shield did they extend.
Some infants yet survived, and the unsated steel
Still drinks the life-blood of each whelp of Christian-kind,
To kiss thy sandall'd foot, O King, thy people kneel,
And golden circlets to thy victor-ankle bind.
JOHN L. O'SULLIVAN.
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