the White King's faces,
The hamless commons and all the hay.

Come with loud bells and belabouring of bladder,
Spirit of Laughter, descend on the town
With tumbling of paint-pails from top of the ladder
And blowing of tiles from the stockbroker's crown;
Bind on thy hosen in motley halves
Over the rondure and curve of thy calves;
The night may be mad, but the morn shall be madder--
Madder than moonshine and madder than brown.

What shall I say to it, how shall I pipe of it,
Weave it what strains of ineffable things?
O that my Muse were a Muse with a gripe of it,
Engined with petrol and wafted by wings!
For the sorrows and sighings of winter are done,
And _Punch_ is appearing on April 1,
And a savour of daffodils clings to the type of it,
And the buttered balm of a crumpet clings.

For the merle and the mavis have joined with the "shover"
In drowning the day and the night with their din,
And all too soon the unwary lover
Is walking about in vestures thin;
And the "nuts" are buying their shirts of cotton,
And, cast into storage cold, forgotten,
From delicate necks they were wont to cover,
'Possum by 'possum, the stoles come in.

And soon is an ending of football rushes,
The hold that tackles a travelling heel;
And the front of the town with new fire flushes,
The paints that follow the paints that peel;
And the season comes with its gauds and gold
When the amorous plaints once more are told,
And the polished hoof of her partner crushes
The damsel's shoes in the ballroom reel.

And _The Times_ by day and _The News_ by night,
Fleeter of foot than the Fleet Street kid,
Shall hurry in motor-cars left and right
Saying what Kent and Yorkshire did;
And, stout as pillars of marble set,
The copper shall capture the suffragette,
And screen from peril and heave from sight
The maid pursuing, the Minister hid.

The P.C. comes with his maenad haul,
Her hatbrim tilted across her eyes;
The cricketer dips to the flying ball,
His white pants billowing round his thighs;
But thou, _Charivari_, week by week
Remaining (I take it) quite unique,
Shalt shake with laughter and pink them all
With points that puncture the vogue that flies.