Lines Written After a Battle. By an Assistant Surgeon of the Nineteenth Nankeens. Punch
Stiff are the warrior’s muscles,
Congeal’d, alas! his chyle;
No more in hostile tussles
Will he excite his bile.
Dry is the epidermis,
A vein no longer bleeds—
And the communis vermis
Upon the warrior feeds.
Compress’d, alas! the thorax,
That throbbed with joy or pain;
Not e’en a dose of borax
Could make it throb again.
Dried up the warrior’s throat is,
All shatter’d too, his head:
Still is the epiglottis—
The warrior is dead.
The Phrenologist to His Mistress. Punch
Though largely developed’s my organ of order,
And though I possess my destructiveness small,
On suicide, dearest, you’ll force me to border,
If thus you are deaf to my vehement call
For thee veneration is daily extending,
On a head that for want of it once was quite flat;
If thus with my passion I find you contending,
My organs will swell till they’ve knocked off my hat
I know, of perceptions, I’ve none of the clearest;
For while I believe that by thee I’m beloved,
I’m told at my passion thou secretly sneerest;
But oh! may the truth unto me never be proved!
I’ll fly to Deville, and a cast of my forehead
I’ll send unto thee;—then upon thee I’ll call.
Rejection—alas! to the lover how horrid—
When ’tis passion that SPURS-HIM, ’tis bitter as GALL.