Twenty-Eight and Twenty-Nine by Winthrop Mackforth Praed
"Rien n'est changé, mes amis" – Charles X
I heard a sick man's dying sigh,
And an infant's idle laughter;
The Old Year went with mourning by,
The New came dancing after.
Let Sorrow shed her lonely tear,
Let Revelry hold her ladle!
Bring boughs of cypress for the bier,
Fling roses on the cradle:
Mutes to wait on the funeral state!
Pages to pour the wine!
A requiem for Twenty-eight,
And a health to Twenty-nine!
Alas for human happiness!
Alas for human sorrow!
Our yesterday is nothingness, -
What else will be our morrow?
Still Beauty must be stealing hearts,
And Knavery stealing purses,
Still cooks must live by making tarts,
And wits by making verses:
While sages prate, and courts debate,
The same stars set and shine;
And the world, as it rolled through Twenty-eight,
Must roll through Twenty-nine.
Some King will come, in Heaven's good time,
To the tomb his father came to;
Some thief will wade through blood and crime
To a crown he has no claim to;
Some suffering land will rend in twain
The manacles that bound her,
And gather the links of the broken chain
To fasten them proudly round her;
The grand and great will love and hate,
And combat, and combine;
And much where we were in Twenty-eight
We shall be in Twenty-nine.
O'Connell will fail to raise the rent,
And Kenyon to sink the nation,
And Shiel will abuse the Parliament
And Peel the Association;
And the thought of bayonets and swords
Will make ex-chancellors merry,
And jokes will be cut in the House of Lords,
And throats in the county Kerry;
And writers of weight will speculate
On the Cabinet's design,
And just what it did in Twenty-eight
It will do in Twenty-nine.
Mathews will be extremely gay,
And Hook extremely dirty:
And brick and mortar still will say,
"Try Warren, No. 80."
And "General Sauce" will have its puff,
And so will General Jackson;
And peasants will drink heavy stuff,
Which they put a heavy tax on:
And long and late, at many a fête,
Gooseberry champagne will shine;
And as old as it was in Twenty-eight,
It will be in Twenty-nine.
John Thomas Mugg, on a lonely hill,
Will do a deed of mystery;
The Morning Chronicle will fill
Five columns with the history;
The jury will be all surprise,
The prisoner quite collected,
And Justice Park will wipe his eyes
And be very much affected;
And folks will relate poor Corder's fate
As they hurry home to dine,
Comparing the hangings of Tweny-eight
With the hangings of Twenty-nine.
And the goddess of love will keep her smiles,
And the god of cups his orgies,
And there will be riots in St. Giles,
And weddings in St George's.
And mendicants will sup like kings,
And lords will swear like lackeys,
And black eyes oft will lead to rings
And rings will lead to black eyes;
And pretty Kate will scold her mate
In a dialect all divine;
Alas! They married in Twenty-eight, -
They will part in Twenty-nine!
And oh! I shall find how, day by day,
All thoughts and things look older;
How the laugh of pleasure grows less gay,
And the heart of friendship colder;
But still I shall be what I have been,
Sworn foe to Lady Reason,
And seldom troubled with the spleen,
And fond of talking treason:
I shall buckle my skate, and leap my gate,
And throw – and write – my line;
And the woman I worshipped in Twenty-eight
I shall worship in Twenty-nine!
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