An outcast from comfort, a bondsman to pain, The shivering prey of the frost and the rain, The thrall of King Bumble must patiently dwell, ’Midst scenes that might fit the grim Florentine’s Hell. Foul garbage-choked footways snake on through the slum, Where the sweet airs of heaven seem never to come, Where a bird shuns to ’light, where a flower ne’er waves; Where the grass will not grow, though it grows amidst graves. Home, Home, Sweet, Sweet Home! As ruled by King Bumble, a sweet place is Home! Close-stacked, crazy rookeries, rotting and rank, Pest-pregnant, plague-foul in each timber and plank, Rear thick-huddled frontages, row upon row, The smoke-pall above, and the swamp-ooze below. Each garret-roof covers its horde――though it leaks, Each cellar slough hides its pale crowd――though it reeks. Dumb thralls, voiceless victims, none heeds their mute call; But Dirt and Disease are the masters of all. Home, Home, Sweet, Sweet Home! As ruled by King Bumble, a sweet place is Home! Hence Mammon draws tithe, and here Moloch takes toll; Here conscienceless wealth, of the spiderish soul, Sucks fatness from foulness in fœtid beast-lairs; Whilst somnolent Bumble, as deaf to all pray’rs As a drowsing King Log, all his powers lets fall, And skulks in prone impotence. What though they crawl From their dens to his knees, the poor souls, in appeal? His brains are of wool, and his heart is of steel. Home, Home, Sweet, Sweet Home! As ruled by King Bumble, a sweet place is Home! Deaf, blind to all pleas sense or feeling can urge, Till King Pest, with his fierce, indiscriminate scourge, Sallies forth from the loathsome, the horrible lair, That himself and his imps with our pariahs share. Then, who so affrighted, so helpless as he, King Log, brainless Bumble? Ah! when shall we see Some stout modern ghoul-slaying Champion come To teach our poor outcasts the meaning of Home? Home, Home, Sweet, Sweet Home! As ruled by King Bumble, a sweet place is Home! _Punch._ November 12, 1881. ―――― SONG OF THE PROFESSIONAL BEAUTY’S HUSBAND. ’Midst mansions and palaces so much I roam, That it’s useless to long for an evening at home; The charm from the heavens that falls on us there I’ve never a chance to experience or share. Home, home, sweet sweet home, Be it ever so humble, There’s no place like home! An exile from home, splendour dazzles in vain, O give me my villa at Tooting again; My pipe at the fireside; the lawn where I bowled; And that sweet peace of mind, far more precious than gold!