Some people hang portraits up
In a room where they dine or sup:
And the wife clinks tea-things under,
And her cousin, he stirs his cup,
Asks Who was the lady, I wonder?
T is a daub John bought at a sale,
Quoth the wife, looks black as thunder:
What a shade beneath her nose!
Snuff-taking, I suppose,
Adds the cousin, while Johns corns ail.
Or else, there s no wife in the case,
But the portrait s queen of the place,
Alone mid the other spoils
Of youth, masks, gloves and foils,
And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine,
And the long whip, the tandem-lasher,
And the cast from a fist (not, alas! mine,
But my masters, the Tipton Slasher),
And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace,
And a satin shoe used for cigar-case,
And th...