Classic Poem

In Thibet once there reign'd, we're told,
A little Lama, one year old —
Raised to the throne, that realm to bless,
Just when his little Holiness
Had cut — as near as can be reckoned —
Some say his first tooth, some his second .
Chronologers and verses vary,
Which proves historians should be wary.
We only know the important truth —
His Majesty had cut a tooth.

And much his subjects were enchanted,
As well all Lamas' subjects may be,
And would have given their heads, if wanted,
To make tee-totums for the baby
As he was there by Right Divine
(What lawyers call Jure Divino
Meaning a right to yours and mine,
And every body's goods and rhino) —
Of course his faithful subjects' purses
Were ready with their aids and succors —
Nothing was seen but pension'd nurses,
And the land groan'd with bibs and tuckers.

Oh! had there been a Hume or Bennet
Then sitting in the Thibet Senate,
Ye gods, what room for long debates
Upon the Nursery Estimates!
What cutting down of swaddling-clothes
And pin-a-fores, in nightly battles!
What calls for papers to expose
The waste of sugar-plums and rattles!
But no — if Thibet had M Ps,
They were far better bred than these;
Nor gave the slightest opposition,
During the Monarch's whole dentition.

But short this calm; for, just when he
Had reach'd the alarming age of three,
When royal natures — and, no doubt
Those of all noble beasts — break out,
The Lama, who till then was quiet,
Show'd symptoms of a taste for riot;
And, ripe for mischief, early, late,
Without regard for Church or State,
Made free with whosoe'er came nigh —
Tweak'd the Lord Chancellor by the nose,
Turn'd all the Judges' wigs awry,
And trod on the old General's toes —
Pelted the Bishops with hot buns,
Rode cock-horse on the city maces,
And shot, from little devilish guns,
Hard peas into his subjects' faces.
In short, such wicked pranks he play'd,
And grew so mischievous (God bless him!)
That his chief Nurse — though with the aid
Of an Archbishop — was afraid,
When in these moods, to comb or dress him;
And even the persons most inclined
For Kings, through thick and thin, to stickle,
Thought him (if they'd but speak their mind
Which they did not ) an odious pickle.

At length, some patriot lords — a breed
Of animals they have in Thibet,
Extremely rare, and fit, indeed,
For folks like Pidcock to exhibit —
Some patriot lords, seeing the length
To which things went, combined their strength,
And penn'd a manly, plain and free
Remonstrance to the Nursery;
In which, protesting that they yielded,
To none, that ever went before 'em —
In loyalty to him who wielded
The hereditary pap-spoon o'er 'em —
That, as for treason, 't was a thing
That made them almost sick to think of —
That they and theirs stood by the King,
Throughout his measles and his chin-cough,
When others, thinking him consumptive,
Had ratted to the heir Presumptive! —
But still — though much admiring kings
(And chiefly those in leading-strings) —
They saw, with shame and grief of soul,
There was no longer now the wise
And constitutional control
Of birch before their ruler's eyes;
But that, of late, such pranks and tricks,
And freaks occurr'd the whole day long,
As all, but men with bishoprics,
Allow'd, even in a King, were wrong —
Wherefore it was they humbly pray'd
That Honorable Nursery,
That such reforms be henceforth made,
As all good men desired to see; —
In other words (lest they might seem
Too tedious) as the gentlest scheme
For putting all such pranks to rest,
And in its bud the mischief nipping —
They ventured humbly to suggest
His Majesty should have a whipping!

When this was read — no Congreve rocket
Discharged into the Gallic trenches,
E'er equall'd the tremendous shock it
Produc'd upon the Nursery Benches.
The Bishops, who, of course had votes,
By right of age and petticoats,
Were first and foremost in the fuss —
" What, whip a Lama! — suffer birch
To touch his sacred — — infamous!
Deistical! — assailing thus
The fundamentals of the Church!
No — no — such patriot plans as these
(So help them Heaven — and their sees!)
They held to be rank blasphemies. "

The alarm thus given, by these and other
Grave ladies of the Nursery side,
Spread through the land, till, such a pother
Such party squabbles, far and wide,
Never in history's page had been
Recorded, as were then between
The Whippers and Non-whippers seen.
Till, things arriving at a state
Which gave some fears of revolution,
The patriot lords' advice, though late,
Was put at last in execution.
The Parliament of Thibet met —
The little Lama call'd before it,
Did, then and there, his whipping get,
And (as the Nursery Gazette
Assures us) like a hero bore it.

And though 'mong Thibet Tories, some
Lament that Royal Martyr d om
(Please to observe, the letter D
In this last word's pronounced like B),
Yet to the example of that Prince
So much is Thibet's land a debtor,
'Tis said her little Lamas since
Have all behaved themselves much better.