An Idyl of a Prince

If ever by chance
You should happen to glance
At a map of the world, and should come upon France,
Raise your eyes just a bit, un-
Till you have hit on,
An Island that’s known as the home of the Briton.
Now, if it weren’t wrong
To put faith in a song,
You would find from a ditty, by one Mr. Campbell,
That one fine day this island
Arose, high and dry land,
Right out of the sea--from no submarine gambol;
But was turned out by order,
Express to afford her
Assistance to Neptune in ruling the ocean,
Which may be the truth, or a mere poet’s notion.

Be this as it may--
And I don’t mean to say
I have faith in the literal truth of the lay--
She has ruled the ocean a pretty long while, and
Is considered a bright little, tight little island;

And, as one thing to brag of,
Possesses a flag of
Such capital bunting, that one Thomas Dibdin
Declared as a fact--and I don’t think he fibbed in
The assertion, which every nation allows and hears--
It has braved war and tempest, unhurt, for a thousand years.
And, in spite of the seas,
Of the foes and the breeze,
It’s as good at this moment as when they first made it,--
Spotless, untattered, and not a bit faded.

To cherish this standard
She has fought, in each land, hard,
But the sea, after all, has been ever her grand card;
And the waves, as they roll
From equator to pole,
Bear fleets on their highway which never pay toll,
Being franked by this banner,
Which waves, in the manner
I’ve mentioned before, all the breezes that fan her.

I think it an error, to fancy that history
Ever records (when it’s truthful) a mystery.
The eyes of a mole
Can’t read a large scroll;
They may pick out each letter, but don’t see the whole.
The qui currit potest
Legere’s no test,
As those who have dipped ’neath the surface must know best.
So, though it seems queer
To children who hear
That the tight little island we’re writing of here
Has contrived to get on with such brilliant successes,--
Adding conquest to conquest, until she possesses
Much more than old Rome ever ventured to vote as
Her provinces--see orbs veteribus notus--
Yet one who reflects
On the matter, detects
All the secret to lie in the fact of the ocean
Receiving his child’s never-failing devotion,--
A devotion repaid
By his ne’er-failing aid,
So that all the world over,
From China to Dover,
Her fleets defy foeman, and pirate, and rover,
And her shores are as happy as cows are in clover.

Now let your eyes stray
On the map, a long way
From this tight little island, until they make play
Over dreary hot lands
Of deserts and sands,
Where brave Captain Speke
Has set off to seek
For the source of the Nile, till you come, if you’ll follow me,
To a country baptized with the name of Cape Colony.
And you’ll find, near its south-western corner, stuck down
At the foot of the mountain called Table, a town.

In this town, then, there dwell,
As geographers tell,
A great many people of all sorts of hues,
Heathen, Mohammedans, Christians and Jews,
Dutchmen and Englishmen, black Mozambiquas,
Tawny Malays, and a sprinkling of Griquas,
Hottentots, Kafirs, and Negroes and others,
Who’d be puzzled to point out their fathers or mothers.

They say on the whole that the town’s rather pretty
(By the way they’ve a bishop, so call it a city);
But apt to be sleepy, and stagnant and dull,
In a kind of perpetual calm, or a lull
Of such very long lasting, that no one can form
An idea of the time when it last had a storm.
Now did you ever try on
A slumbering lion
(Of course safe in a cage, or fixed in the wrong hole)
The experiment called stirring up with a long pole?
First you tickle him gently, he stops in a snore,
Then you pummel his ribs and he utters a roar.

Then you give it him harder--a bound and a shake,
A jump at the bars which may well make you quake,
Mane and tail up on end--and the lion’s awake.
Just so they relate
How this city of late,
Being sleepy and slow as a solemn debate,
Was aroused from repose
By a fly on its nose,
In the shape of a rumour disturbing its doze.
The rumour then spread, and the faster it flew,
The more evident was it the rumour was true.
The city jumped up from its very long snooze,
Threw its nightcap aside, donned its small clothes and shoes,
And was more wide-awake than’t has ever been since
It was built--for till now it ne’er welcomed a Prince!
A Prince, then, was coming--a Prince of Blood Royal--
The son of a Queen to whom every one’s loyal;
A Prince, too, who wears the triumphant blue jacket,
To guard from affronting
That famed bit of bunting,
And pitch into the foe who shall dare to attack it.

A long while the city remained in suspense,
Hopeful, but fidgety, making pretence
Of not being excited,
But looking delighted,
As a boy newly breeched, or a cit newly knighted.
Grand preparations
For illuminations.
Fêtes and regattas, and balls and reviews,
Ev’ry one asking, “Well, what’s the last news?”

Ladies all crowding, besieging the shops,
Buying dresses so grand that their brilliancy whops
(As Jonathan says) all description, and gloves
And wreaths that they fondly pronounce “perfect loves,”
And lace-bordered lawn for each sweet little nose,
And the finest of pinky-white gauzy silk hose,
And white satin shoes for their dear little toes.

Volunteers, too,
Green, scarlet, and blue,
Furbish their uniforms up to look new,
Polish up bayonets, rifles, and sabres,
Looking forward with pride to their arduous labours,
And twist their moustaches with pleasure prophetic
Of how they will look--with the aid of cosmetic.

All things have an end, as experience teaches
(Except crinoline, p’raps, or Upper House speeches);
So at length the suspense was all over--at last
The season of mere expectation was past,
And in Simon’s Bay,
No very great way
From the city, all snug, the Euryalus lay.
In Adderley Street
Citizens meet,
Staring at telegrams, hauling out flags,
Stowed safely away in their canvas bags,
Guessing to-morrow will be a grand holiday,
Vowing they’ll try, too, to make it a jolly day.
Cabmen and coolies,
Whose general rule is
To get in the way when they’ve got nothing to do,
Assemble in groups
At street-corners or stoeps,
And stop up the road when you try to get through.
And little black boys
Kick up a noise
By way of evincing their innocent joys.

* * *

The morrow came, up rose the sun,
And who hath seen a brighter one?
No cloud to obscure a single ray,
A clear, warm, brilliant summer’s day.
A day right worthy of its scene,
A people’s homage to their Queen,
In hailing with their heartfelt joy
Her darling child--her sailor boy!
The morrow has come;
Trumpet and drum,
Streamers and pennants,
Houses empty of tenants,
Cannon and bells,--
Everything tells
Of a day that’s begun
Of rejoicing and fun.
The city’s awake now, as sure as a gun,
And looks almost as bright as that glorious sun.

It’s past half-past one, and it’s drawing near two--
The hour he’s to come, if the programme speak true.
Chevalier Duprat, with his stout bombardiers,
Is preparing salutes to astonish our ears.
The Rifle Corps, too, with their dark-green and black,
Looking regular heroes, and shooters called “crack,”
With their soldier-like colonel--right man in the right place,
Though the steed that he rides isn’t such as he might grace--
Line the streets in full force,
With also the horse,
Than whom none would fight more--
The brave blue and white corps,
With helmets of silver--such regular shiners--
And the scarlet and gold of the sappers-and-miners.
And last, but not least, with their breeks in zigzag stripes,
The gallant Scotch corps, with their capital bagpipes.
To these add the regulars--regular bricks--
The brave Fifty-ninth, with its flag inscribed LIX.
(And so it does everything--pardon the pun,
Its atrociously bad, but it’s true as the sun.)

At length one hears,
From the bombardiers,
The banging of cannon, which serves for their cheers;
And the Prince with his retinue really appears
Over Castle-bridge, past Caledon Square,
Of all, save stones and mud-holes, bare.
Beside the parade, with its stunted firs,
Which scarcely the sign of a breeze now stirs,
Through a street where the breeze pretty frequently plays her part,
Now known as Darling Street--ci-devant Keizersgracht.

The Prince had arrived, and no princely race
Showed ever a nobler youthful face;
So full of beauty, so full of grace,
His chestnut hair, his large blue eye,
His features calm, wherein seem to lie
Gentleness, intellect, majesty.
A prince right worthy his royal name,
His lineage proud, his father’s fame;
Right worthy to wear the glorious blue,
And fight ’neath the banner of England too--
The mightiest banner that ever flew!

And the motley crowd
All shouts aloud,
“Huzzah” and “hooray,”
And “Daar komaan hy.”
And they bless him, and praise him, and most of them pray
That the time may arrive, when he’s got to majority,
He may come here and handle the reins of authority.
Some people, it’s true,
Are inclined to look blue,
For they don’t see a crown, and they fear it’s a “do;”
And they’re hard to convince
That a real royal prince
Isn’t born with a crown
Firmly wedged down
To the top of his skull,
Like the deck of a hull;
But he sits on his horse like a prince, like a man,
Sits as only a thoroughbred Englishman can.

In Adderley Street a big archway is seen,
Symbol of triumph, and smothered in green,
Flags waving gaily above it, and near
Crowds of all sorts of people to see and to cheer;
Then coming next on
The house of the sexton,
Past the church, and the banks,
And the building that ranks
Midst the finest of Cape Town attempts architectural,
Though the order that claims it is purely conjectural,
Up to the gateway
At foot of the straight way
Of oaks now all leafless, and passed the Museum
With its curious contents (if the Prince could but see ’em),
To Government House, where His Highness alights,
And sees, lucky Prince, the best sight of all sights,
Such a bevy of fair ones, in costumes so neat,
All murmuring, “How handsome! how charming! how sweet.”
I doubt whether prince ever had such a treat.

And next the reception! How tell of the pushing,
The fishing out cards, and the squeezing and crushing,
The bows that are made and the looks that are given,
The gorgeous “get ups” of those who have striven
To display their own grandeur as well as their loyalty,
By wonderful ties to astonish young royalty!
And the ladies, the dears,
Abandoning fears,
Leaving benches outside
Through the windows they glide,
Rush into the chamber like fairies demented,
Resolved to be present--though not yet presented.
And all the men swear,
And the ladies declare,
The former “by Jove,” and the latter “’pon honour,”
That to look on that handsome young face is a bonheur,
So great that they feel at that moment they doubly can
Pity a people that’s only republican.

The sun’s gone to bed,
And gas lamps instead,
And lamps blue, white, and red,
Such a flood of light shed
As drive notions of darkness clean out of your head.
Pictures, devices,
Like very large slices
From very large twelfth-cakes, illustrate the crisis.
A lady of very extensive dimensions,
With a helmet and spear of most warlike pretensions,
But without crinoline,
Is everywhere seen
Sitting down on her shield by a sea very green;
And lending a hand
To assist to the land
A tall, thin, blue gentleman, dressed very grand.

And one in an able way
Represents Table Bay,
And a very large dolphin with greenest of tails,
And fins up on end, p’r’aps to serve him for sails,
And another blue gentleman stuck on its back,
Though you’d fancy yourself you’d be off in a crack
If you ventured to sea on so fishy a smack.
And mermaids are there,
With long flowing hair,
And their scaly green tails sticking up in the air;
And Neptune with trident, with mighty long beard,
Hails a nice little midshipman, looking half “skeer’d.”
Stores, mansions, and shops--all’s a blaze of bright light,
And crowds--black, white, tawney--look on with delight
Save where the long range
Of the Merchants’ Exchange
Is all in the dark, and the people that stare up
Hear that somehow the electric light won’t give a flare-up.

There’s the morning gun!
There’s the rising sun!
Put out all the lamps--the fun’s over and done.
The city’s done all that a good city can,
For one day, at least, has turned out to a man.
There’s more work before her of much the same sort,
All sorts of revelry, all sorts of sport.
But my muse for a time flits away from these shores
To take breath, or, more nauticé, “lie on her oars.”
But she cries,
As she flies
To her home in the skies,
As she ever shall cry till her good lungs shall fail her,
“Hail, Son of Victoria! hail, Royal Sailor!”

MORAL.

By the way, as she flew,
I may say, entre nous,
Something fell from her pocket: it looked like a screw
Of tobacco; but though she’s got capital jaws,
I never yet found that her ladyship “chaws.”
I picked it up carefully, undid the roll,
And found nothing in it except a small scroll,
Which is just in these words--for what I thought a “quid” is--
“Happy the Nation Whose Princes Are Middies!”