  GIVEN TO THE NEPAULESE AMBASSADOR BY THE PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL COMPANY OH, will ye choose to hear the news? Bedad, I cannot pass it o’er; I’ll tell you all about the Ball To the Naypaulase Ambassador. Begor! this fÊte all balls does bate At which I’ve worn a pump, and I Must here relate the splendthor great Of th’ Oriental Company. These men of sinse dispoised expinse, To fÊte these black Achilleses. “We’ll show the blacks,” says they, “Almack’s, And take the rooms at Willis’s.” With flags and shawls, for these Nepauls, They hung the rooms of Willis up, And decked the walls, and stairs, and halls, With roses and with lilies up. And Jullien’s band it tuck its stand So sweetly in the middle there, And soft bassoons played heavenly chunes, And violins did fiddle there. And when the Coort was tired of spoort, I’d lave you, boys, to think there was A nate buffet before them set, Where lashins of good dhrink there was. At ten, before the ballroom door His moighty Excellincy was, He smoiled and bowed to all the crowd, So gorgeous and imminse he was. His dusky shuit, sublime and mute Into the doorway followed him; And oh, the noise of the blackguard boys, As they hurrood and hollowed him! The noble Chair stud at the stair, And bade the dhrums to thump; and he Did thus evince to that Black Prince The welcome of his Company. Oh, fair the girls, and rich the curls, And bright the oys you saw there, was; And fixed each oye, ye there could spoi, On Gineral Jung Behawther was! This gineral great then tuck his sate, With all the other ginerals (Bedad his troat, his belt, his coat, All bleezed with precious minerals); And as he there, with princely air, Recloinin’ on his cushion was, All round about his royal chair The squeezin’ and the pushin’ was. O Pat, such girls, such jukes, and earls, Such fashion and nobilitee! Just think of Tim, and fancy him Amidst the hoigh gentilitee! There was Lord de L’Huys, and the Portygeese Ministher and his lady there, And I reckonized, with much surprise, Our messmate, Bob O’Grady, there. There was Baroness Brunow, that looked like Juno, And Baroness Rehausen there, And Countess Roullier, that looked peculiar Well, in her robes of gauze in there. There was Lord Crowhurst (I knew him first, When only Misther Pips he was), And Mick O’Toole, the great big fool, That after supper tipsy was. There was Lord Fingall, and his ladies all, And Lords Killeen and Dufferin, And Paddy Fife, with his fat wife: I wondher how he could stuff her in. There was Lord Belfast, that by me passed, And seemed to ask how should I go there? And the Widow Macrae, and Lord A. Hay, And the Marchioness of Sligo there. Yes, jukes, and earls, and diamonds, and pearls, And pretty girls, was sporting there; And some beside (the rogues!) I spied, Behind the windies, coorting there. Oh, there’s one I know, bedad would show As beautiful as any there, And I’d like to hear the pipers blow, And shake a fut with Fanny there! William Makepeace Thackeray. |
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