The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

596
"Le petit" call not him who by one act
Has turned old fable into modern fact
Nap Louis courted Europe: Europe shied:
Th' imperial purple was too newly dyed.
"I'll have her though," thought he, "by rape or rapine;
Jove nods sometimes, but catch a Nap a napping!
And now I think of Jove, 't was Jove's own fix,
And so I'll borrow one of Jove's own tricks:
Old itching Palm I'll tickle with a joke,
And he shall lend me England's decent cloak."
'Twas said and done, and his success was full;
He won Europa with the guise of Bull!
THE ORATOR'S EPITAPH.
LORD BROUGHAM.
"Here, reader, turn your weeping eyes,
My fate a useful moral teaches;
The hole in which my body lies
Would not contain one-half my speeches."
ECCENTRIC AND NONDESCRIPT.
THE JOVIAL PRIEST'S CONFESSION.
TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN OF WALTER DE MAPES,
TIME OF HENRY II.
LEIGH HUNT.
I devise to end my days--in a tavern drinking,
May some Christian hold for me--the glass when I am shrinking.
That the cherubim may cry--when they see me sinking,
God be merciful to a soul--of this gentleman's way of thinking.