Tales Out of School

Your godson, my sweet Lady Bridget,
Was entered at Eton last May;
But really, I’m all in a fidget
Till the dear boy is taken away;
For I feel an alarm which, I’m certain,
A mother to you may confess,
When the newspaper draws up the curtain,
The terrible Windsor Express.

You know I was half broken-hearted
When the poor fellow whispered “Good bye!”
As soon as the carriage had started
I sat down in comfort to cry.
Sir Thomas looked on while I fainted,
Deriding--the bear!--my distress;
But what were the hardships I painted
To the tales of the Windsor Express?

The planter in sultry Barbadoes
Is a terrible tyrant, no doubt;
In Moscow, a Count carbonadoes
His ignorant serfs with the knout;
Severely men smart for their errors
Who dine at a man-of-war’s mess;
But Eton has crueller terrors
Than these,--in the Windsor Express.

I fancied the Doctor at College
Had dipped, now and then, into books;
But, bless me! I find that his knowledge
Is just like my coachman’s or cook’s:
He’s a dunce--I have heard it with sorrow;--
’Twould puzzle him sadly, I guess,
To put into English to-morrow
A page of the Windsor Express.

All preachers of course should be preaching
That virtue’s a very good thing;
All tutors of course should be teaching
To fear God, and honour the King;
But at Eton they’ve regular classes
For folly, for vice, for excess;
They learn to be villains and asses,
Nothing else in the Windsor Express.

Mrs. Martha, who nursed little Willy,
Believes that she nursed him in vain:
Old John, who takes care of the filly,
Says “He’ll ne’er come to mount her again!”
My Juliet runs up to her mother,
And cries, with a mournful caress,
“Oh, where have you sent my poor brother?
Look, look at the Windsor Express!”

Ring, darling, and order the carriage;
Whatever Sir Thomas may say,--
Who has been quite a fool since our marriage,--
I’ll take him directly away.
For of all their atrocious ill-treating
The end it is easy to guess;
Some day they’ll be killing and eating
My boy--in the Windsor Express!