He comes, he comes! the news afar Is spread by gun and steeple; He seems (what many princes are) The _Father_ of his People. That echoing cheer――it rises higher And seems to reach the stars; No Life-Guard escort he requires Who meets with such _Huzzas_! A poet-King; nay, do not scoff! The Monarch hath his _Mews_; Like those whose pensions he cuts off, He’s followed by the _Blues_. Yet some our King and Queen must hate, For see, besides a star, Their houses they illuminate With “W. A. R.” He’s near the Abbey; on the air The guns their echoes threw; And now the bishops make him swear To mind _their_ canons too. That organ seems on _ours_ to play As if our love to nourish; Be ruined by reform who may, Those trumpeters must _flourish_. A crown is brought, they make him King; A King! why they mistake; _Two_ crowns, each child must know the thing, But _half_ a sovereign make. Well, he is ours; along the way He hears his people’s vow; And as he goes, he seems to say, “Your _Bill_ is passing now!” ――――:o:―――― THE LAUREATE’S LAY. (_Robert Southey_, Poet Laureate.) [The Laureate’s Lay will of course exist only in a blank page. His lyre hath no chord left. He hath taken out a patent in the Court of Apollo, for treating birthdays and coronations with contempt. He basks in the sunshine of idleness――the poetical privilege of doing nothing, except calling at the treasury once a-year. As he could not be conveniently omitted among the contributors to this collection, some emblematic device may be introduced――a chamelion, or a rainbow: or you may paint him, if you will, glancing back upon the light of his earlier years, and paraphrasing the story of “Little Wilhelmine” and the “famous victory:”―― “They say it was a splendid sight, Such sums were lavished then, Although the nation at the time Was full of famished men; But things like _that_, you know, must be At every famous pageantry. “Much praise our gentle Monarch won, And so did Grey and Brougham;” “_But what good came of it at last_,” Quoth simple Mr. Hume. “Why, that I cannot tell,” said he, “But ’twas a famous pageantry.” [Illustration] MR. BARNUM’S EXPERIENCE OF TRAVELLING IN ENGLAND.