The United Family

“Thrice to thineAnd thrice to mine,And thrice again,To make up nine.”--The Weird Sisters in Macbeth.

How oft in families intrudesThe demon of domestic feuds,One liking this, one hating that,Each snapping each, like dog and cat,With divers bents and tastes perverse,One’s bliss, in fact, another’s curse.How seldom anything we seeLike our united family!

Miss Brown of chapels goes in search,Her sister Susan likes the church;One plays at cards, the other don’t;One will be gay, the other won’t:In pray’r and preaching one persists,The other sneers at Methodists;On Sundays ev’n they can’t agreeLike our united family.

There’s Mr. Bell, a Whig at heart,His lady takes the Tories’ part,While William, junior, nothing loth,Spouts Radical against them both.One likes the News, one takes the Age,Another buys the unstamped page;They all say I, and never we,Like our united family.

Not so with us;--with equal zealWe all support Sir Robert Peel;

Of Wellington our mouths are full,We dote on Sundays on John Bull,With Pa and Ma on selfsame side,Our house has never to divide--No opposition members beIn our united family.

Miss Pope her “Light Guitar” enjoys,Her father “cannot bear the noise,”Her mother’s charm’d with all her songs,Her brother jangles with the tongs.Thus discord out of music springs,The most unnatural of things,Unlike the genuine harmonyIn our united family!

We all on vocal music dote;To each belongs a tuneful throat,And all prefer that Irish boonOf melody--“The Young May Moon”--By choice we all select the harp,Nor is the voice of one too sharp,Another flat--all in one keyIs our united family.

Miss Powell likes to draw and paint,But then it would provoke a saint,Her brother takes her sheep for pigs,And says her trees are periwigs.Pa praises all, black, blue, or brown;And so does Ma--but upside down!They cannot with the same eye see,Like our united family.

Miss Patterson has been to France,Her heart’s delight is in a dance;The thing her brother cannot bear,So she must practise with a chair.Then at a waltz her mother winks;But Pa says roundly what he thinks,All dos-à-dos, not vis-à-vis,Like our united family.

We none of us that whirling love,Which both our parents disapprove,A hornpipe we delight in more,Or graceful Minuet de la Cour--A special favourite with Mamma,Who used to dance it with Papa,In this we still keep step, you see,In our united family.

Then books--to bear the Cobb’s debates!One worships Scott--another hates,Monk Lewis Ann fights stoutly for,And Jane likes “Bunyan’s Holy War.”The father on Macculloch pores,The mother says all books are bores;But blue serene as heav’n are we,In our united family.

We never wrangle to exaltScott, Banim, Bulwer, Hope, or Galt,We care not whether Smith or Hook,So that a novel be the book,And in one point we all are fast,Of novels we prefer the last,--In that the very heads agreeOf our united family!

To turn to graver matters still,How much we see of sad self-will!Miss Scrope, with brilliant views in life,Would be a poor lieutenant’s wife.A lawyer has her Pa’s good word,Her Ma has looked her out a Lord,What would they not all give to beLike our united family!

By one congenial taste allied,Our dreams of bliss all coincide,We’re all for solitudes and cots,And love, if we may choose our lots.As partner in the rural planEach paints the same dear sort of man;One heart alone there seems to beIn our united family.

One heart, one hope, one wish, one mind,--One voice, one choice, all of a kind,--And can there be a greater bliss--A little heav’n on earth--than this?The truth to whisper in your ear,It must be told!--we are not nearThe happiness that ought to beIn our united family!

Alas! ’tis our congenial tasteThat lays our little pleasures waste--We all delight, no doubt, to sing,We all delight to touch the string,But where’s the heart that nine may touch?And nine “May Moons” are eight too much--Just fancy nine, all in one key,Of our united family!

The play--Oh how we love a play,But half the bliss is shorn away;On winter nights we venture nigh,But think of houses in July!Nine crowded in a private box,Is apt to pick the stiffest locks--Our curls would all fall out, though weAre one united family!

In art the self-same line we walk,We all are fond of heads in chalk,We one and all our talent strainAdelphi prizes to obtain;Nine turban’d Turks are duly sent,But can the royal Duke presentNine silver palettes--no, not he--To our united family.

Our eating shows the very thing,We all prefer the liver-wing,Asparagus when scarce and thin,And peas directly they come in,The marrow-bone--if there be one--The ears of hare when crisply done,The rabbit’s brain--we all agreeIn our united family.

In dress the same result is seen,We all so doat on apple-green;But nine in green would seem a schoolOf charity to quizzing fool--We cannot all indulge our willWith “that sweet silk on Ludgate Hill,”No remnant can sufficient beFor our united family.

In reading hard is still our fate,One cannot read o’erlooked by eight,And nine “Disowned”--nine “Pioneers,”Nine “Chaperons,” nine “Buccaneers,”Nine “Maxwells,” nine “Tremaines,” and such,Would dip into our means too much--Three months are spent o’er volumes three,In our united family.

Unhappy Muses! if the NineAbove in doom with us combine,--In vain we breathe the tender flame,Our sentiments are all the same,And nine complaints address’d to HopeExceed the editorial scope,One in, and eight put out, must beOf our united family!

But this is nought--of deadlier kind,A ninefold woe remains behind.O why were we so art and part?So like in taste, so one in heart?Nine cottages may be to let,But here’s the thought to make us fret,We cannot each add Frederick B.To our united family.