Ho! members take your tickets,―― Ho! maidens, choose your shawls! The son looks out his waistcoats, The sire selects his smalls. To-day is Flora’s triumph, To-day great sights you view, So, cabmen, drive your cattle, And drive your bargains too. Green are the squares of London, And some few lanes are green, And trees of city foliage Shade walks of stone between, And green are certain gala days, With places known to fame―― The inner circle of the park That bears the Regent’s name. And green are those great glasses That hold Germania’s wine, That they tell you suit the vintage Of the clear Moselle and Rhine: And green are those young freshmen, Who, to earn a gentle name, Take credit of a tailor, Or give it to a dame. But greener far than any Is Chiswick’s shaven sward, And gayer than all gala-days Are the groups that swarm abroad. See how they muster onwards,―― The car, the cab, the team; My dearest friends in carriages, My dearer self by steam. Bright is the first fresh show of Spring, When cucumbers are rare; And bright the show of hot July, When Autumn’s fruits are there: Autumn that’s forced beforehand, As children oversage, When all forestalls its season, Like minds before their age. But the brightest day among them, The grandest show of three, Is that which brings the roses, And draws down you and me. So ’mid the great Triumvirs Did greater Caesar sway; So ’mid the days of Epsom Stands out the Derby day. (_Ten verses omitted._) THE TRAVELLING BACHELOR. This imitation of Lord Macaulay first appeared in Bentley’s Miscellany, and was afterwards included in _The Bentley Ballads_ (R. Bentley, London. 1869.) ―――― THE BATTLE OF THE VESTRIES. Ho, guardians! sound the cornet, Ho, beadle! clear the way, The parish pride to-day hath hied To see the mud-pumps play. The legates of the Vestries Have gained the river boat. The legates of the Vestries Are all in state afloat. The legates of the Vestries Defying aqueous ills, Have reached the land by Stratford’s strand, Where stand the Abbey Mills. Fair are the bowers of Stratford, Its coppices and clumps, And fair the Pumping Station Which Tamesian sewage pumps, And fairer yet by long chalks That cold collation is, Which Vestrymen have brought in train, Of ham and beef and fowl amain, And ale and stout and cheap champagne: The Vestries term it “fiz.”