Bright days, when I leisurely pace to and fro, And meet all the people I do or don’t know. Here is jolly old Brown, and his fair daughter Lillie;— No wonder some pilgrims affect Piccadilly!
See yonder pair, fonder ne’er rode at a canter,— She smiles on her Poet, contented to saunter; Some envy her spouse, and some covet her filly, He envies them both—he’s an ass, Piccadilly!
Now were I that gay bride, with a slave at my feet, I would choose me a house in my favourite street. Yes or No—I would carry my point, willy, nilly; If “no,” pick a quarrel, if “yes,” Piccadilly.
Thus the high frolic by—thus the lowly are seen, As perched on the roof of yon bulky machine, The Kensington dilly—and Tom Smith or Billy Smoke doubtful cigars in ill-used Piccadilly.
And there’s the balcony, where, ages ago, Old Q sat and gazed on the damsels below. There are plausible wolves even now, seeking silly Red Riding Hoods small in thy woods, Piccadilly!
And there is a Statesman, the Man of the Day, A laughing philosopher, gallant and gay; No darling of Fortune more manfully trod, Full of years, full of fame, and the world at his nod, Can the thought reach his heart, and then leave it more chilly,— “Old P or Old Q I must quit Piccadilly?”
Life is chequer’d, a patchwork of smiles and of frowns; We valued its ups, let us muse on its downs. There’s a side that is bright, it will then turn the other, One turn, if a good one, deserves such another. _These_ downs are delightful, _these_ ups are not hilly,— Let us turn one more turn ere we quit Piccadilly!
We knew an old Clerk, it was “once on time,” An era to set sober datists despairing; Then let them despair!—Darby sat in a chair Near a cross that takes name from the village of Charing.
Though silent and lean, Darby was not morose, What hair he had left was more silver than sable, His feet had begun to turn up at the toes, From constantly being curled under a table.
His pay and expenditure, quite in accord, Were both on the strictest economy founded; His rulers, in conclave, were known as the Board, His rulers were sticks of mahogany rounded.
In his heart he looked down on this dignified knot,— For why, the forefather of one of these senators, A rascal concern’d in the Gunpowder Plot, Had been barber-surgeon to Darby’s progenitors.