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@@ -0,0 +1,5902 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifty Bab Ballads, by William S. Gilbert + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll +have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using +this ebook. + + + +Title: Fifty Bab Ballads + +Author: William S. Gilbert + + +Release Date: December, 1996 [EBook #757] +Updated: September 8, 2002 +Last Updated: July 20, 2019 + + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY BAB BALLADS *** + + + + +Produced by David Price + + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1884 and 1891, George Routledge and Sons + + + + +FIFTY "BAB" BALLADS--MUCH SOUND AND LITTLE SENSE + + +By William S. Gilbert + + + + +PREFACE. + + + +The "BAB BALLADS" appeared originally in the columns of "FUN," when +that periodical was under the editorship of the late TOM HOOD. +They were subsequently republished in two volumes, one called "THE +BAB BALLADS," the other "MORE BAB BALLADS." The period during +which they were written extended over some three or four years; +many, however, were composed hastily, and under the discomforting +necessity of having to turn out a quantity of lively verse by a +certain day in every week. As it seemed to me (and to others) that +the volumes were disfigured by the presence of these hastily +written impostors, I thought it better to withdraw from both +volumes such Ballads as seemed to show evidence of carelessness or +undue haste, and to publish the remainder in the compact form under +which they are now presented to the reader. + +It may interest some to know that the first of the series, "The +Yarn of the Nancy Bell," was originally offered to "PUNCH,"--to +which I was, at that time, an occasional contributor. It was, +however, declined by the then Editor, on the ground that it was +"too cannibalistic for his readers' tastes." + +W. S. GILBERT. + +24 The Boltons, South Kensington, +August, 1876. + + + +Ballad: CAPTAIN REECE. + + + +Of all the ships upon the blue, +No ship contained a better crew +Than that of worthy CAPTAIN REECE, +Commanding of The Mantelpiece. + +He was adored by all his men, +For worthy CAPTAIN REECE, R.N., +Did all that lay within him to +Promote the comfort of his crew. + +If ever they were dull or sad, +Their captain danced to them like mad, +Or told, to make the time pass by, +Droll legends of his infancy. + +A feather bed had every man, +Warm slippers and hot-water can, +Brown windsor from the captain's store, +A valet, too, to every four. + +Did they with thirst in summer burn, +Lo, seltzogenes at every turn, +And on all very sultry days +Cream ices handed round on trays. + +Then currant wine and ginger pops +Stood handily on all the "tops;" +And also, with amusement rife, +A "Zoetrope, or Wheel of Life." + +New volumes came across the sea +From MISTER MUDIE'S libraree; +The Times and Saturday Review +Beguiled the leisure of the crew. + +Kind-hearted CAPTAIN REECE, R.N., +Was quite devoted to his men; +In point of fact, good CAPTAIN REECE +Beatified The Mantelpiece. + +One summer eve, at half-past ten, +He said (addressing all his men): +"Come, tell me, please, what I can do +To please and gratify my crew. + +"By any reasonable plan +I'll make you happy if I can; +My own convenience count as nil: +It is my duty, and I will." + +Then up and answered WILLIAM LEE +(The kindly captain's coxswain he, +A nervous, shy, low-spoken man), +He cleared his throat and thus began: + +"You have a daughter, CAPTAIN REECE, +Ten female cousins and a niece, +A Ma, if what I'm told is true, +Six sisters, and an aunt or two. + +"Now, somehow, sir, it seems to me, +More friendly-like we all should be, +If you united of 'em to +Unmarried members of the crew. + +"If you'd ameliorate our life, +Let each select from them a wife; +And as for nervous me, old pal, +Give me your own enchanting gal!" + +Good CAPTAIN REECE, that worthy man, +Debated on his coxswain's plan: +"I quite agree," he said, "O BILL; +It is my duty, and I will. + +"My daughter, that enchanting gurl, +Has just been promised to an Earl, +And all my other familee +To peers of various degree. + +"But what are dukes and viscounts to +The happiness of all my crew? +The word I gave you I'll fulfil; +It is my duty, and I will. + +"As you desire it shall befall, +I'll settle thousands on you all, +And I shall be, despite my hoard, +The only bachelor on board." + +The boatswain of The Mantelpiece, +He blushed and spoke to CAPTAIN REECE: +"I beg your honour's leave," he said; +"If you would wish to go and wed, + +"I have a widowed mother who +Would be the very thing for you - +She long has loved you from afar: +She washes for you, CAPTAIN R." + +The Captain saw the dame that day - +Addressed her in his playful way - +"And did it want a wedding ring? +It was a tempting ickle sing! + +"Well, well, the chaplain I will seek, +We'll all be married this day week +At yonder church upon the hill; +It is my duty, and I will!" + +The sisters, cousins, aunts, and niece, +And widowed Ma of CAPTAIN REECE, +Attended there as they were bid; +It was their duty, and they did. + + + +Ballad: THE RIVAL CURATES. + + + +List while the poet trolls +Of MR. CLAYTON HOOPER, +Who had a cure of souls +At Spiffton-extra-Sooper. + +He lived on curds and whey, +And daily sang their praises, +And then he'd go and play +With buttercups and daisies. + +Wild croquet HOOPER banned, +And all the sports of Mammon, +He warred with cribbage, and +He exorcised backgammon. + +His helmet was a glance +That spoke of holy gladness; +A saintly smile his lance; +His shield a tear of sadness. + +His Vicar smiled to see +This armour on him buckled: +With pardonable glee +He blessed himself and chuckled. + +"In mildness to abound +My curate's sole design is; +In all the country round +There's none so mild as mine is!" + +And HOOPER, disinclined +His trumpet to be blowing, +Yet didn't think you'd find +A milder curate going. + +A friend arrived one day +At Spiffton-extra-Sooper, +And in this shameful way +He spoke to Mr. HOOPER: + +"You think your famous name +For mildness can't be shaken, +That none can blot your fame - +But, HOOPER, you're mistaken! + +"Your mind is not as blank +As that of HOPLEY PORTER, +Who holds a curate's rank +At Assesmilk-cum-Worter. + +"HE plays the airy flute, +And looks depressed and blighted, +Doves round about him 'toot,' +And lambkins dance delighted. + +"HE labours more than you +At worsted work, and frames it; +In old maids' albums, too, +Sticks seaweed--yes, and names it!" + +The tempter said his say, +Which pierced him like a needle - +He summoned straight away +His sexton and his beadle. + +(These men were men who could +Hold liberal opinions: +On Sundays they were good - +On week-days they were minions.) + +"To HOPLEY PORTER go, +Your fare I will afford you - + Deal him a deadly blow, +And blessings shall reward you. + +"But stay--I do not like +Undue assassination, +And so before you strike, +Make this communication: + +"I'll give him this one chance - +If he'll more gaily bear him, +Play croquet, smoke, and dance, +I willingly will spare him." + +They went, those minions true, +To Assesmilk-cum-Worter, +And told their errand to +The REVEREND HOPLEY PORTER. + +"What?" said that reverend gent, +"Dance through my hours of leisure? +Smoke?--bathe myself with scent? - +Play croquet? Oh, with pleasure! + +"Wear all my hair in curl? +Stand at my door and wink--so - +At every passing girl? +My brothers, I should think so! + +"For years I've longed for some +Excuse for this revulsion: +Now that excuse has come - +I do it on compulsion!!!" + +He smoked and winked away - +This REVEREND HOPLEY PORTER - +The deuce there was to pay +At Assesmilk-cum-Worter. + +And HOOPER holds his ground, +In mildness daily growing - +They think him, all around, +The mildest curate going. + + + +Ballad: ONLY A DANCING GIRL. + + + +Only a dancing girl, +With an unromantic style, +With borrowed colour and curl, +With fixed mechanical smile, +With many a hackneyed wile, +With ungrammatical lips, +And corns that mar her trips. + +Hung from the "flies" in air, +She acts a palpable lie, +She's as little a fairy there +As unpoetical I! +I hear you asking, Why - +Why in the world I sing +This tawdry, tinselled thing? + +No airy fairy she, +As she hangs in arsenic green +From a highly impossible tree +In a highly impossible scene +(Herself not over-clean). +For fays don't suffer, I'm told, +From bunions, coughs, or cold. + +And stately dames that bring +Their daughters there to see, +Pronounce the "dancing thing" +No better than she should be, +With her skirt at her shameful knee, +And her painted, tainted phiz: +Ah, matron, which of us is? + +(And, in sooth, it oft occurs +That while these matrons sigh, +Their dresses are lower than hers, +And sometimes half as high; +And their hair is hair they buy, +And they use their glasses, too, +In a way she'd blush to do.) + +But change her gold and green +For a coarse merino gown, +And see her upon the scene +Of her home, when coaxing down +Her drunken father's frown, +In his squalid cheerless den: +She's a fairy truly, then! + + + +Ballad: TO A LITTLE MAID--BY A POLICEMAN. + + + +Come with me, little maid, +Nay, shrink not, thus afraid - +I'll harm thee not! +Fly not, my love, from me - +I have a home for thee - +A fairy grot, +Where mortal eye +Can rarely pry, +There shall thy dwelling be! + +List to me, while I tell +The pleasures of that cell, +Oh, little maid! +What though its couch be rude, +Homely the only food +Within its shade? +No thought of care +Can enter there, +No vulgar swain intrude! + +Come with me, little maid, +Come to the rocky shade +I love to sing; +Live with us, maiden rare - +Come, for we "want" thee there, +Thou elfin thing, +To work thy spell, +In some cool cell +In stately Pentonville! + + + +Ballad: THE TROUBADOUR. + + + +A troubadour he played +Without a castle wall, +Within, a hapless maid +Responded to his call. + +"Oh, willow, woe is me! +Alack and well-a-day! +If I were only free +I'd hie me far away!" + +Unknown her face and name, +But this he knew right well, +The maiden's wailing came +From out a dungeon cell. + +A hapless woman lay +Within that dungeon grim - +That fact, I've heard him say, +Was quite enough for him. + +"I will not sit or lie, +Or eat or drink, I vow, +Till thou art free as I, +Or I as pent as thou." + +Her tears then ceased to flow, +Her wails no longer rang, +And tuneful in her woe +The prisoned maiden sang: + +"Oh, stranger, as you play, +I recognize your touch; +And all that I can say +Is, thank you very much." + +He seized his clarion straight, +And blew thereat, until +A warden oped the gate. +"Oh, what might be your will?" + +"I've come, Sir Knave, to see +The master of these halls: +A maid unwillingly +Lies prisoned in their walls."' + +With barely stifled sigh +That porter drooped his head, +With teardrops in his eye, +"A many, sir," he said. + +He stayed to hear no more, +But pushed that porter by, +And shortly stood before +SIR HUGH DE PECKHAM RYE. + +SIR HUGH he darkly frowned, +"What would you, sir, with me?" +The troubadour he downed +Upon his bended knee. + +"I've come, DE PECKHAM RYE, +To do a Christian task; +You ask me what would I? +It is not much I ask. + +"Release these maidens, sir, +Whom you dominion o'er - +Particularly her +Upon the second floor. + +"And if you don't, my lord" - +He here stood bolt upright, +And tapped a tailor's sword - +"Come out, you cad, and fight!" + +SIR HUGH he called--and ran +The warden from the gate: +"Go, show this gentleman +The maid in Forty-eight." + +By many a cell they past, +And stopped at length before +A portal, bolted fast: +The man unlocked the door. + +He called inside the gate +With coarse and brutal shout, +"Come, step it, Forty-eight!" +And Forty-eight stepped out. + +"They gets it pretty hot, +The maidens what we cotch - +Two years this lady's got +For collaring a wotch." + +"Oh, ah!--indeed--I see," +The troubadour exclaimed - +"If I may make so free, +How is this castle named? + +The warden's eyelids fill, +And sighing, he replied, +"Of gloomy Pentonville +This is the female side!" + +The minstrel did not wait +The Warden stout to thank, +But recollected straight +He'd business at the Bank. + + + +Ballad: FERDINANDO AND ELVIRA; OR, THE GENTLE PIEMAN. + + + +PART I. + + +At a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supper +One whom I will call ELVIRA, and we talked of love and TUPPER, + +MR. TUPPER and the Poets, very lightly with them dealing, +For I've always been distinguished for a strong poetic feeling. + +Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto, +And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not +to. + +Then she whispered, "To the ball-room we had better, dear, be +walking; +If we stop down here much longer, really people will be talking." + +There were noblemen in coronets, and military cousins, +There were captains by the hundred, there were baronets by dozens. + +Yet she heeded not their offers, but dismissed them with a +blessing, +Then she let down all her back hair, which had taken long in +dressing. + +Then she had convulsive sobbings in her agitated throttle, +Then she wiped her pretty eyes and smelt her pretty smelling- +bottle. + +So I whispered, "Dear ELVIRA, say,--what can the matter be with +you? +Does anything you've eaten, darling POPSY, disagree with you?" + +But spite of all I said, her sobs grew more and more distressing, +And she tore her pretty back hair, which had taken long in +dressing. + +Then she gazed upon the carpet, at the ceiling, then above me, +And she whispered, "FERDINANDO, do you really, REALLY love me?" + +"Love you?" said I, then I sighed, and then I gazed upon her +sweetly - +For I think I do this sort of thing particularly neatly. + +"Send me to the Arctic regions, or illimitable azure, +On a scientific goose-chase, with my COXWELL or my GLAISHER! + +"Tell me whither I may hie me--tell me, dear one, that I may know - +Is it up the highest Andes? down a horrible volcano?" + +But she said, "It isn't polar bears, or hot volcanic grottoes: +Only find out who it is that writes those lovely cracker mottoes!" + + +PART II. + + +"Tell me, HENRY WADSWORTH, ALFRED POET CLOSE, or MISTER TUPPER, +Do you write the bon bon mottoes my ELVIRA pulls at supper?" + +But HENRY WADSWORTH smiled, and said he had not had that honour; +And ALFRED, too, disclaimed the words that told so much upon her. + +"MISTER MARTIN TUPPER, POET CLOSE, I beg of you inform us;" +But my question seemed to throw them both into a rage enormous. + +MISTER CLOSE expressed a wish that he could only get anigh to me; +And MISTER MARTIN TUPPER sent the following reply to me: + +"A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit," - +Which I know was very clever; but I didn't understand it. + +Seven weary years I wandered--Patagonia, China, Norway, +Till at last I sank exhausted at a pastrycook his doorway. + +There were fuchsias and geraniums, and daffodils and myrtle, +So I entered, and I ordered half a basin of mock turtle. + +He was plump and he was chubby, he was smooth and he was rosy, +And his little wife was pretty and particularly cosy. + +And he chirped and sang, and skipped about, and laughed with +laughter hearty - +He was wonderfully active for so very stout a party. + +And I said, "O gentle pieman, why so very, very merry? +Is it purity of conscience, or your one-and-seven sherry?" + +But he answered, "I'm so happy--no profession could be dearer - +If I am not humming 'Tra! la! la!' I'm singing 'Tirer, lirer!' + +"First I go and make the patties, and the puddings, and the +jellies, +Then I make a sugar bird-cage, which upon a table swell is; + +"Then I polish all the silver, which a supper-table lacquers; +Then I write the pretty mottoes which you find inside the +crackers." - + +"Found at last!" I madly shouted. "Gentle pieman, you astound me!" +Then I waved the turtle soup enthusiastically round me. + +And I shouted and I danced until he'd quite a crowd around him - +And I rushed away exclaiming, "I have found him! I have found +him!" + +And I heard the gentle pieman in the road behind me trilling, +"'Tira, lira!' stop him, stop him! 'Tra! la! la!' the soup's a +shilling!" + +But until I reached ELVIRA'S home, I never, never waited, +And ELVIRA to her FERDINAND'S irrevocably mated! + + + +Ballad: TO MY BRIDE--(WHOEVER SHE MAY BE.) + + + +Oh! little maid!--(I do not know your name +Or who you are, so, as a safe precaution +I'll add)--Oh, buxom widow! married dame! +(As one of these must be your present portion) +Listen, while I unveil prophetic lore for you, +And sing the fate that Fortune has in store for you. + +You'll marry soon--within a year or twain - +A bachelor of circa two and thirty: +Tall, gentlemanly, but extremely plain, +And when you're intimate, you'll call him "BERTIE." +Neat--dresses well; his temper has been classified +As hasty; but he's very quickly pacified. + +You'll find him working mildly at the Bar, +After a touch at two or three professions, +From easy affluence extremely far, +A brief or two on Circuit--"soup" at Sessions; +A pound or two from whist and backing horses, +And, say three hundred from his own resources. + +Quiet in harness; free from serious vice, +His faults are not particularly shady, +You'll never find him "SHY"--for, once or twice +Already, he's been driven by a lady, +Who parts with him--perhaps a poor excuse for him - +Because she hasn't any further use for him. + +Oh! bride of mine--tall, dumpy, dark, or fair! +Oh! widow--wife, maybe, or blushing maiden, +I've told YOUR fortune; solved the gravest care +With which your mind has hitherto been laden. +I've prophesied correctly, never doubt it; +Now tell me mine--and please be quick about it! + +You--only you--can tell me, an' you will, +To whom I'm destined shortly to be mated, +Will she run up a heavy modiste's bill? +If so, I want to hear her income stated +(This is a point which interests me greatly). +To quote the bard, "Oh! have I seen her lately?" + +Say, must I wait till husband number one +Is comfortably stowed away at Woking? +How is her hair most usually done? +And tell me, please, will she object to smoking? +The colour of her eyes, too, you may mention: +Come, Sibyl, prophesy--I'm all attention. + + + +Ballad: SIR MACKLIN. + + + +Of all the youths I ever saw +None were so wicked, vain, or silly, +So lost to shame and Sabbath law, +As worldly TOM, and BOB, and BILLY. + +For every Sabbath day they walked +(Such was their gay and thoughtless natur) +In parks or gardens, where they talked +From three to six, or even later. + +SIR MACKLIN was a priest severe +In conduct and in conversation, +It did a sinner good to hear +Him deal in ratiocination. + +He could in every action show +Some sin, and nobody could doubt him. +He argued high, he argued low, +He also argued round about him. + +He wept to think each thoughtless youth +Contained of wickedness a skinful, +And burnt to teach the awful truth, +That walking out on Sunday's sinful. + +"Oh, youths," said he, "I grieve to find +The course of life you've been and hit on - +Sit down," said he, "and never mind +The pennies for the chairs you sit on. + +"My opening head is 'Kensington,' +How walking there the sinner hardens, +Which when I have enlarged upon, +I go to 'Secondly'--its 'Gardens.' + +"My 'Thirdly' comprehendeth 'Hyde,' +Of Secresy the guilts and shameses; +My 'Fourthly'--'Park'--its verdure wide - +My 'Fifthly' comprehends 'St. James's.' + +"That matter settled, I shall reach +The 'Sixthly' in my solemn tether, +And show that what is true of each, +Is also true of all, together. + +"Then I shall demonstrate to you, +According to the rules of WHATELY, +That what is true of all, is true +Of each, considered separately." + +In lavish stream his accents flow, +TOM, BOB, and BILLY dare not flout him; +He argued high, he argued low, +He also argued round about him. + +"Ha, ha!" he said, "you loathe your ways, +You writhe at these my words of warning, +In agony your hands you raise." +(And so they did, for they were yawning.) + +To "Twenty-firstly" on they go, +The lads do not attempt to scout him; +He argued high, he argued low, +He also argued round about him. + +"Ho, ho!" he cries, "you bow your crests - +My eloquence has set you weeping; +In shame you bend upon your breasts!" +(And so they did, for they were sleeping.) + +He proved them this--he proved them that - +This good but wearisome ascetic; +He jumped and thumped upon his hat, +He was so very energetic. + +His Bishop at this moment chanced +To pass, and found the road encumbered; +He noticed how the Churchman danced, +And how his congregation slumbered. + +The hundred and eleventh head +The priest completed of his stricture; +"Oh, bosh!" the worthy Bishop said, +And walked him off as in the picture. + + + +Ballad: THE YARN OF THE "NANCY BELL." {1} + + + +'Twas on the shores that round our coast +From Deal to Ramsgate span, +That I found alone on a piece of stone +An elderly naval man. + +His hair was weedy, his beard was long, +And weedy and long was he, +And I heard this wight on the shore recite, +In a singular minor key: + +"Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold, +And the mate of the Nancy brig, +And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, +And the crew of the captain's gig." + +And he shook his fists and he tore his hair, +Till I really felt afraid, +For I couldn't help thinking the man had been drinking, +And so I simply said: + +"Oh, elderly man, it's little I know +Of the duties of men of the sea, +And I'll eat my hand if I understand +However you can be + +"At once a cook, and a captain bold, +And the mate of the Nancy brig, +And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, +And the crew of the captain's gig." + +Then he gave a hitch to his trousers, which +Is a trick all seamen larn, +And having got rid of a thumping quid, +He spun this painful yarn: + +"'Twas in the good ship Nancy Bell +That we sailed to the Indian Sea, +And there on a reef we come to grief, +Which has often occurred to me. + +"And pretty nigh all the crew was drowned +(There was seventy-seven o' soul), +And only ten of the Nancy's men +Said 'Here!' to the muster-roll. + +"There was me and the cook and the captain bold, +And the mate of the Nancy brig, +And the bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, +And the crew of the captain's gig. + +"For a month we'd neither wittles nor drink, +Till a-hungry we did feel, +So we drawed a lot, and, accordin' shot +The captain for our meal. + +"The next lot fell to the Nancy's mate, +And a delicate dish he made; +Then our appetite with the midshipmite +We seven survivors stayed. + +"And then we murdered the bo'sun tight, +And he much resembled pig; +Then we wittled free, did the cook and me, +On the crew of the captain's gig. + +"Then only the cook and me was left, +And the delicate question, 'Which +Of us two goes to the kettle?' arose, +And we argued it out as sich. + +"For I loved that cook as a brother, I did, +And the cook he worshipped me; +But we'd both be blowed if we'd either be stowed +In the other chap's hold, you see. + +"'I'll be eat if you dines off me,' says TOM; +'Yes, that,' says I, 'you'll be, - +'I'm boiled if I die, my friend,' quoth I; +And 'Exactly so,' quoth he. + +"Says he, 'Dear JAMES, to murder me +Were a foolish thing to do, +For don't you see that you can't cook ME, +While I can--and will--cook YOU!' + +"So he boils the water, and takes the salt +And the pepper in portions true +(Which he never forgot), and some chopped shalot. +And some sage and parsley too. + +"'Come here,' says he, with a proper pride, +Which his smiling features tell, +''T will soothing be if I let you see +How extremely nice you'll smell.' + +"And he stirred it round and round and round, +And he sniffed at the foaming froth; +When I ups with his heels, and smothers his squeals +In the scum of the boiling broth. + +"And I eat that cook in a week or less, +And--as I eating be +The last of his chops, why, I almost drops, +For a wessel in sight I see! + +* * * * + +"And I never larf, and I never smile, +And I never lark nor play, +But sit and croak, and a single joke +I have--which is to say: + +"Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold, +And the mate of the Nancy brig, +And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, +And the crew of the captain's gig!'" + + + +Ballad: THE BISHOP OF RUM-TI-FOO. + + + +From east and south the holy clan +Of Bishops gathered to a man; +To Synod, called Pan-Anglican, +In flocking crowds they came. +Among them was a Bishop, who +Had lately been appointed to +The balmy isle of Rum-ti-Foo, +And PETER was his name. + +His people--twenty-three in sum - +They played the eloquent tum-tum, +And lived on scalps served up, in rum - +The only sauce they knew. +When first good BISHOP PETER came +(For PETER was that Bishop's name), +To humour them, he did the same +As they of Rum-ti-Foo. + +His flock, I've often heard him tell, +(His name was PETER) loved him well, +And, summoned by the sound of bell, +In crowds together came. +"Oh, massa, why you go away? +Oh, MASSA PETER, please to stay." +(They called him PETER, people say, +Because it was his name.) + +He told them all good boys to be, +And sailed away across the sea, +At London Bridge that Bishop he +Arrived one Tuesday night; +And as that night he homeward strode +To his Pan-Anglican abode, +He passed along the Borough Road, +And saw a gruesome sight. + +He saw a crowd assembled round +A person dancing on the ground, +Who straight began to leap and bound +With all his might and main. +To see that dancing man he stopped, +Who twirled and wriggled, skipped and hopped, +Then down incontinently dropped, +And then sprang up again. + +The Bishop chuckled at the sight. +"This style of dancing would delight +A simple Rum-ti-Foozleite. +I'll learn it if I can, +To please the tribe when I get back." +He begged the man to teach his knack. +"Right Reverend Sir, in half a crack! +Replied that dancing man. + +The dancing man he worked away, +And taught the Bishop every day - +The dancer skipped like any fay - +Good PETER did the same. +The Bishop buckled to his task, +With battements, and pas de basque. +(I'll tell you, if you care to ask, +That PETER was his name.) + +"Come, walk like this," the dancer said, +"Stick out your toes--stick in your head, +Stalk on with quick, galvanic tread - +Your fingers thus extend; +The attitude's considered quaint." +The weary Bishop, feeling faint, +Replied, "I do not say it ain't, +But 'Time!' my Christian friend!" + +"We now proceed to something new - +Dance as the PAYNES and LAURIS do, +Like this--one, two--one, two--one, two." +The Bishop, never proud, +But in an overwhelming heat +(His name was PETER, I repeat) +Performed the PAYNE and LAURI feat, +And puffed his thanks aloud. + +Another game the dancer planned - +"Just take your ankle in your hand, +And try, my lord, if you can stand - +Your body stiff and stark. +If, when revisiting your see, +You learnt to hop on shore--like me - +The novelty would striking be, +And must attract remark." + +"No," said the worthy Bishop, "no; +That is a length to which, I trow, +Colonial Bishops cannot go. +You may express surprise +At finding Bishops deal in pride - +But if that trick I ever tried, +I should appear undignified +In Rum-ti-Foozle's eyes. + +"The islanders of Rum-ti-Foo +Are well-conducted persons, who +Approve a joke as much as you, +And laugh at it as such; +But if they saw their Bishop land, +His leg supported in his hand, +The joke they wouldn't understand - +'T would pain them very much!" + + + +Ballad: THE PRECOCIOUS BABY. A VERY TRUE TALE. +(To be sung to the Air of the "Whistling Oyster.") + + + +An elderly person--a prophet by trade - +With his quips and tips +On withered old lips, +He married a young and a beautiful maid; +The cunning old blade! +Though rather decayed, +He married a beautiful, beautiful maid. + +She was only eighteen, and as fair as could be, +With her tempting smiles +And maidenly wiles, +And he was a trifle past seventy-three: +Now what she could see +Is a puzzle to me, +In a prophet of seventy--seventy-three! + +Of all their acquaintances bidden (or bad) +With their loud high jinks +And underbred winks, +None thought they'd a family have--but they had; +A dear little lad +Who drove 'em half mad, +For he turned out a horribly fast little cad. + +For when he was born he astonished all by, +With their "Law, dear me!" +"Did ever you see?" +He'd a pipe in his mouth and a glass in his eye, +A hat all awry - +An octagon tie - +And a miniature--miniature glass in his eye. + +He grumbled at wearing a frock and a cap, +With his "Oh, dear, oh!" +And his "Hang it! 'oo know!" +And he turned up his nose at his excellent pap - +"My friends, it's a tap +Dat is not worf a rap." +(Now this was remarkably excellent pap.) + +He'd chuck his nurse under the chin, and he'd say, +With his "Fal, lal, lal" - +"'Oo doosed fine gal!" +This shocking precocity drove 'em away: +"A month from to-day +Is as long as I'll stay - +Then I'd wish, if you please, for to toddle away." + +His father, a simple old gentleman, he +With nursery rhyme +And "Once on a time," +Would tell him the story of "Little Bo-P," +"So pretty was she, +So pretty and wee, +As pretty, as pretty, as pretty could be." + +But the babe, with a dig that would startle an ox, +With his "C'ck! Oh, my! - +Go along wiz 'oo, fie!" +Would exclaim, "I'm afraid 'oo a socking ole fox." +Now a father it shocks, +And it whitens his locks, +When his little babe calls him a shocking old fox. + +The name of his father he'd couple and pair +(With his ill-bred laugh, +And insolent chaff) +With those of the nursery heroines rare - +Virginia the Fair, +Or Good Goldenhair, +Till the nuisance was more than a prophet could bear. + +"There's Jill and White Cat" (said the bold little brat, +With his loud, "Ha, ha!") +"'Oo sly ickle Pa! +Wiz 'oo Beauty, Bo-Peep, and 'oo Mrs. Jack Sprat! +I've noticed 'oo pat +MY pretty White Cat - +I sink dear mamma ought to know about dat!" + +He early determined to marry and wive, +For better or worse +With his elderly nurse - +Which the poor little boy didn't live to contrive: +His hearth didn't thrive - +No longer alive, +He died an enfeebled old dotard at five! + +MORAL. + +Now, elderly men of the bachelor crew, +With wrinkled hose +And spectacled nose, +Don't marry at all--you may take it as true +If ever you do +The step you will rue, +For your babes will be elderly--elderly too. + + + +Ballad: TO PHOEBE. {2} + + + +"Gentle, modest little flower, +Sweet epitome of May, +Love me but for half an hour, +Love me, love me, little fay." +Sentences so fiercely flaming +In your tiny shell-like ear, +I should always be exclaiming +If I loved you, PHOEBE dear. + +"Smiles that thrill from any distance +Shed upon me while I sing! +Please ecstaticize existence, +Love me, oh, thou fairy thing!" +Words like these, outpouring sadly +You'd perpetually hear, +If I loved you fondly, madly; - +But I do not, PHOEBE dear. + + + +Ballad: BAINES CAREW, GENTLEMAN. + + + +Of all the good attorneys who +Have placed their names upon the roll, +But few could equal BAINES CAREW +For tender-heartedness and soul. + +Whene'er he heard a tale of woe +From client A or client B, +His grief would overcome him so +He'd scarce have strength to take his fee. + +It laid him up for many days, +When duty led him to distrain, +And serving writs, although it pays, +Gave him excruciating pain. + +He made out costs, distrained for rent, +Foreclosed and sued, with moistened eye - +No bill of costs could represent +The value of such sympathy. + +No charges can approximate +The worth of sympathy with woe; - +Although I think I ought to state +He did his best to make them so. + +Of all the many clients who +Had mustered round his legal flag, +No single client of the crew +Was half so dear as CAPTAIN BAGG. + +Now, CAPTAIN BAGG had bowed him to +A heavy matrimonial yoke - +His wifey had of faults a few - +She never could resist a joke. + +Her chaff at first he meekly bore, +Till unendurable it grew. +"To stop this persecution sore +I will consult my friend CAREW. + +"And when CAREW'S advice I've got, +Divorce a mensa I shall try." +(A legal separation--not +A vinculo conjugii.) + +"Oh, BAINES CAREW, my woe I've kept +A secret hitherto, you know;" - +(And BAINES CAREW, ESQUIRE, he wept +To hear that BAGG HAD any woe.) + +"My case, indeed, is passing sad. +My wife--whom I considered true - +With brutal conduct drives me mad." +"I am appalled," said BAINES CAREW. + +"What! sound the matrimonial knell +Of worthy people such as these! +Why was I an attorney? Well - +Go on to the saevitia, please." + +"Domestic bliss has proved my bane, - +A harder case you never heard, +My wife (in other matters sane) +Pretends that I'm a Dicky bird! + +"She makes me sing, 'Too-whit, too-wee!' +And stand upon a rounded stick, +And always introduces me +To every one as 'Pretty Dick'!" + +"Oh, dear," said weeping BAINES CAREW, +"This is the direst case I know." +"I'm grieved," said BAGG, "at paining you - +"To COBB and POLTHERTHWAITE I'll go - + +"To COBB'S cold, calculating ear, +My gruesome sorrows I'll impart" - +"No; stop," said BAINES, "I'll dry my tear, +And steel my sympathetic heart." + +"She makes me perch upon a tree, +Rewarding me with 'Sweety--nice!' +And threatens to exhibit me +With four or five performing mice." + +"Restrain my tears I wish I could" +(Said BAINES), "I don't know what to do." +Said CAPTAIN BAGG, "You're very good." +"Oh, not at all," said BAINES CAREW. + +"She makes me fire a gun," said BAGG; +"And, at a preconcerted word, +Climb up a ladder with a flag, +Like any street performing bird. + +"She places sugar in my way - +In public places calls me 'Sweet!' +She gives me groundsel every day, +And hard canary-seed to eat." + +"Oh, woe! oh, sad! oh, dire to tell!" +(Said BAINES). "Be good enough to stop." +And senseless on the floor he fell, +With unpremeditated flop! + +Said CAPTAIN BAGG, "Well, really I +Am grieved to think it pains you so. +I thank you for your sympathy; +But, hang it!--come--I say, you know!" + +But BAINES lay flat upon the floor, +Convulsed with sympathetic sob; - +The Captain toddled off next door, +And gave the case to MR. COBB. + + + +Ballad: THOMAS WINTERBOTTOM HANCE. + + + +In all the towns and cities fair +On Merry England's broad expanse, +No swordsman ever could compare +With THOMAS WINTERBOTTOM HANCE. + +The dauntless lad could fairly hew +A silken handkerchief in twain, +Divide a leg of mutton too - +And this without unwholesome strain. + +On whole half-sheep, with cunning trick, +His sabre sometimes he'd employ - +No bar of lead, however thick, +Had terrors for the stalwart boy. + +At Dover daily he'd prepare +To hew and slash, behind, before - +Which aggravated MONSIEUR PIERRE, +Who watched him from the Calais shore. + +It caused good PIERRE to swear and dance, +The sight annoyed and vexed him so; +He was the bravest man in France - +He said so, and he ought to know. + +"Regardez donc, ce cochon gros - +Ce polisson! Oh, sacre bleu! +Son sabre, son plomb, et ses gigots +Comme cela m'ennuye, enfin, mon Dieu! + +"Il sait que les foulards de soie +Give no retaliating whack - +Les gigots morts n'ont pas de quoi - +Le plomb don't ever hit you back." + +But every day the headstrong lad +Cut lead and mutton more and more; +And every day poor PIERRE, half mad, +Shrieked loud defiance from his shore. + +HANCE had a mother, poor and old, +A simple, harmless village dame, +Who crowed and clapped as people told +Of WINTERBOTTOM'S rising fame. + +She said, "I'll be upon the spot +To see my TOMMY'S sabre-play;" +And so she left her leafy cot, +And walked to Dover in a day. + +PIERRE had a doating mother, who +Had heard of his defiant rage; +HIS Ma was nearly ninety-two, +And rather dressy for her age. + +At HANCE'S doings every morn, +With sheer delight HIS mother cried; +And MONSIEUR PIERRE'S contemptuous scorn +Filled HIS mamma with proper pride. + +But HANCE'S powers began to fail - +His constitution was not strong - +And PIERRE, who once was stout and hale, +Grew thin from shouting all day long. + +Their mothers saw them pale and wan, +Maternal anguish tore each breast, +And so they met to find a plan +To set their offsprings' minds at rest. + +Said MRS. HANCE, "Of course I shrinks +From bloodshed, ma'am, as you're aware, +But still they'd better meet, I thinks." +"Assurement!" said MADAME PIERRE. + +A sunny spot in sunny France +Was hit upon for this affair; +The ground was picked by MRS. HANCE, +The stakes were pitched by MADAME PIERRE. + +Said MRS. H., "Your work you see - +Go in, my noble boy, and win." +"En garde, mon fils!" said MADAME P. +"Allons!" "Go on!" "En garde!" "Begin!" + +(The mothers were of decent size, +Though not particularly tall; +But in the sketch that meets your eyes +I've been obliged to draw them small.) + +Loud sneered the doughty man of France, +"Ho! ho! Ho! ho! Ha! ha! Ha! ha! +"The French for 'Pish'" said THOMAS HANCE. +Said PIERRE, "L'Anglais, Monsieur, pour 'Bah.'" + +Said MRS. H., "Come, one! two! three! - +We're sittin' here to see all fair." +"C'est magnifique!" said MADAME P., +"Mais, parbleu! ce n'est pas la guerre!" + +"Je scorn un foe si lache que vous," +Said PIERRE, the doughty son of France. +"I fight not coward foe like you!" +Said our undaunted TOMMY HANCE. + +"The French for 'Pooh!'" our TOMMY cried. +"L'Anglais pour 'Va!'" the Frenchman crowed. +And so, with undiminished pride, +Each went on his respective road. + + + +Ballad: A DISCONTENTED SUGAR BROKER. + + + +A gentleman of City fame +Now claims your kind attention; +East India broking was his game, +His name I shall not mention: +No one of finely-pointed sense +Would violate a confidence, +And shall _I_ go +And do it? No! +His name I shall not mention. + +He had a trusty wife and true, +And very cosy quarters, +A manager, a boy or two, +Six clerks, and seven porters. +A broker must be doing well +(As any lunatic can tell) +Who can employ +An active boy, +Six clerks, and seven porters. + +His knocker advertised no dun, +No losses made him sulky, +He had one sorrow--only one - +He was extremely bulky. +A man must be, I beg to state, +Exceptionally fortunate +Who owns his chief +And only grief +Is--being very bulky. + +"This load," he'd say, "I cannot bear; +I'm nineteen stone or twenty! +Henceforward I'll go in for air +And exercise in plenty." +Most people think that, should it come, +They can reduce a bulging tum +To measures fair +By taking air +And exercise in plenty. + +In every weather, every day, +Dry, muddy, wet, or gritty, +He took to dancing all the way +From Brompton to the City. +You do not often get the chance +Of seeing sugar brokers dance +From their abode +In Fulham Road +Through Brompton to the City. + +He braved the gay and guileless laugh +Of children with their nusses, +The loud uneducated chaff +Of clerks on omnibuses. +Against all minor things that rack +A nicely-balanced mind, I'll back +The noisy chaff +And ill-bred laugh +Of clerks on omnibuses. + +His friends, who heard his money chink, +And saw the house he rented, +And knew his wife, could never think +What made him discontented. +It never entered their pure minds +That fads are of eccentric kinds, +Nor would they own +That fat alone +Could make one discontented. + +"Your riches know no kind of pause, +Your trade is fast advancing; +You dance--but not for joy, because +You weep as you are dancing. +To dance implies that man is glad, +To weep implies that man is sad; +But here are you +Who do the two - +You weep as you are dancing!" + +His mania soon got noised about +And into all the papers; +His size increased beyond a doubt +For all his reckless capers: +It may seem singular to you, +But all his friends admit it true - +The more he found +His figure round, +The more he cut his capers. + +His bulk increased--no matter that - +He tried the more to toss it - +He never spoke of it as "fat," +But "adipose deposit." +Upon my word, it seems to me +Unpardonable vanity +(And worse than that) +To call your fat +An "adipose deposit." + +At length his brawny knees gave way, +And on the carpet sinking, +Upon his shapeless back he lay +And kicked away like winking. +Instead of seeing in his state +The finger of unswerving Fate, +He laboured still +To work his will, +And kicked away like winking. + +His friends, disgusted with him now, +Away in silence wended - +I hardly like to tell you how +This dreadful story ended. +The shocking sequel to impart, +I must employ the limner's art - +If you would know, +This sketch will show +How his exertions ended. + +MORAL. + +I hate to preach--I hate to prate - +- I'm no fanatic croaker, +But learn contentment from the fate +Of this East India broker. +He'd everything a man of taste +Could ever want, except a waist; +And discontent +His size anent, +And bootless perseverance blind, +Completely wrecked the peace of mind +Of this East India broker. + + + +Ballad: THE PANTOMIME "SUPER" TO HIS MASK. + + + +Vast empty shell! +Impertinent, preposterous abortion! +With vacant stare, +And ragged hair, +And every feature out of all proportion! +Embodiment of echoing inanity! +Excellent type of simpering insanity! +Unwieldy, clumsy nightmare of humanity! +I ring thy knell! + +To-night thou diest, +Beast that destroy'st my heaven-born identity! +Nine weeks of nights, +Before the lights, +Swamped in thine own preposterous nonentity, +I've been ill-treated, cursed, and thrashed diurnally, +Credited for the smile you wear externally - +I feel disposed to smash thy face, infernally, +As there thou liest! + +I've been thy brain: +I'VE been the brain that lit thy dull concavity! +The human race +Invest MY face +With thine expression of unchecked depravity, +Invested with a ghastly reciprocity, +I'VE been responsible for thy monstrosity, +I, for thy wanton, blundering ferocity - +But not again! + +'T is time to toll +Thy knell, and that of follies pantomimical: +A nine weeks' run, +And thou hast done +All thou canst do to make thyself inimical. +Adieu, embodiment of all inanity! +Excellent type of simpering insanity! +Unwieldy, clumsy nightmare of humanity! +Freed is thy soul! + +(The Mask respondeth.) + +Oh! master mine, +Look thou within thee, ere again ill-using me. +Art thou aware +Of nothing there +Which might abuse thee, as thou art abusing me? +A brain that mourns THINE unredeemed rascality? +A soul that weeps at THY threadbare morality? +Both grieving that THEIR individuality +Is merged in thine? + + + +Ballad: THE GHOST, THE GALLANT, THE GAEL, AND THE GOBLIN. + + + +O'er unreclaimed suburban clays +Some years ago were hobblin' +An elderly ghost of easy ways, +And an influential goblin. +The ghost was a sombre spectral shape, +A fine old five-act fogy, +The goblin imp, a lithe young ape, +A fine low-comedy bogy. + +And as they exercised their joints, +Promoting quick digestion, +They talked on several curious points, +And raised this delicate question: +"Which of us two is Number One - +The ghostie, or the goblin?" +And o'er the point they raised in fun +They fairly fell a-squabblin'. + +They'd barely speak, and each, in fine, +Grew more and more reflective: +Each thought his own particular line +By chalks the more effective. +At length they settled some one should +By each of them be haunted, +And so arrange that either could +Exert his prowess vaunted. + +"The Quaint against the Statuesque" - +By competition lawful - +The goblin backed the Quaint Grotesque, +The ghost the Grandly Awful. +"Now," said the goblin, "here's my plan - +In attitude commanding, +I see a stalwart Englishman +By yonder tailor's standing. + +"The very fittest man on earth +My influence to try on - +Of gentle, p'r'aps of noble birth, +And dauntless as a lion! +Now wrap yourself within your shroud - +Remain in easy hearing - +Observe--you'll hear him scream aloud +When I begin appearing! + +The imp with yell unearthly--wild - +Threw off his dark enclosure: +His dauntless victim looked and smiled +With singular composure. +For hours he tried to daunt the youth, +For days, indeed, but vainly - +The stripling smiled!--to tell the truth, +The stripling smiled inanely. + +For weeks the goblin weird and wild, +That noble stripling haunted; +For weeks the stripling stood and smiled, +Unmoved and all undaunted. +The sombre ghost exclaimed, "Your plan +Has failed you, goblin, plainly: +Now watch yon hardy Hieland man, +So stalwart and ungainly. + +"These are the men who chase the roe, +Whose footsteps never falter, +Who bring with them, where'er they go, +A smack of old SIR WALTER. +Of such as he, the men sublime +Who lead their troops victorious, +Whose deeds go down to after-time, +Enshrined in annals glorious! + +"Of such as he the bard has said +'Hech thrawfu' raltie rorkie! +Wi' thecht ta' croonie clapperhead +And fash' wi' unco pawkie!' +He'll faint away when I appear, +Upon his native heather; +Or p'r'aps he'll only scream with fear, +Or p'r'aps the two together." + +The spectre showed himself, alone, +To do his ghostly battling, +With curdling groan and dismal moan, +And lots of chains a-rattling! +But no--the chiel's stout Gaelic stuff +Withstood all ghostly harrying; +His fingers closed upon the snuff +Which upwards he was carrying. + +For days that ghost declined to stir, +A foggy shapeless giant - +For weeks that splendid officer +Stared back again defiant. +Just as the Englishman returned +The goblin's vulgar staring, +Just so the Scotchman boldly spurned +The ghost's unmannered scaring. + +For several years the ghostly twain +These Britons bold have haunted, +But all their efforts are in vain - +Their victims stand undaunted. +This very day the imp, and ghost, +Whose powers the imp derided, +Stand each at his allotted post - +The bet is undecided. + + + +Ballad: THE PHANTOM CURATE. A FABLE. + + + +A Bishop once--I will not name his see - +Annoyed his clergy in the mode conventional; +From pulpit shackles never set them free, +And found a sin where sin was unintentional. +All pleasures ended in abuse auricular - +The Bishop was so terribly particular. + +Though, on the whole, a wise and upright man, +He sought to make of human pleasures clearances; +And form his priests on that much-lauded plan +Which pays undue attention to appearances. +He couldn't do good deeds without a psalm in 'em, +Although, in truth, he bore away the palm in 'em. + +Enraged to find a deacon at a dance, +Or catch a curate at some mild frivolity, +He sought by open censure to enhance +Their dread of joining harmless social jollity. +Yet he enjoyed (a fact of notoriety) +The ordinary pleasures of society. + +One evening, sitting at a pantomime +(Forbidden treat to those who stood in fear of him), +Roaring at jokes, sans metre, sense, or rhyme, +He turned, and saw immediately in rear of him, +His peace of mind upsetting, and annoying it, +A curate, also heartily enjoying it. + +Again, 't was Christmas Eve, and to enhance +His children's pleasure in their harmless rollicking, +He, like a good old fellow, stood to dance; +When something checked the current of his frolicking: +That curate, with a maid he treated lover-ly, +Stood up and figured with him in the "Coverley!" + +Once, yielding to an universal choice +(The company's demand was an emphatic one, +For the old Bishop had a glorious voice), +In a quartet he joined--an operatic one. +Harmless enough, though ne'er a word of grace in it, +When, lo! that curate came and took the bass in it! + +One day, when passing through a quiet street, +He stopped awhile and joined a Punch's gathering; +And chuckled more than solemn folk think meet, +To see that gentleman his Judy lathering; +And heard, as Punch was being treated penalty, +That phantom curate laughing all hyaenally. + +Now at a picnic, 'mid fair golden curls, +Bright eyes, straw hats, bottines that fit amazingly, +A croquet-bout is planned by all the girls; +And he, consenting, speaks of croquet praisingly; +But suddenly declines to play at all in it - +The curate fiend has come to take a ball in it! + +Next, when at quiet sea-side village, freed +From cares episcopal and ties monarchical, +He grows his beard, and smokes his fragrant weed, +In manner anything but hierarchical - +He sees--and fixes an unearthly stare on it - +That curate's face, with half a yard of hair on it! + +At length he gave a charge, and spake this word: +"Vicars, your curates to enjoyment urge ye may; +To check their harmless pleasuring's absurd; +What laymen do without reproach, my clergy may." +He spake, and lo! at this concluding word of him, +The curate vanished--no one since has heard of him. + + + +Ballad: KING BORRIA BUNGALEE BOO. + + + +KING BORRIA BUNGALEE BOO +Was a man-eating African swell; +His sigh was a hullaballoo, +His whisper a horrible yell - +A horrible, horrible yell! + +Four subjects, and all of them male, +To BORRIA doubled the knee, +They were once on a far larger scale, +But he'd eaten the balance, you see +("Scale" and "balance" is punning, you see). + +There was haughty PISH-TUSH-POOH-BAH, +There was lumbering DOODLE-DUM-DEY, +Despairing ALACK-A-DEY-AH, +And good little TOOTLE-TUM-TEH - +Exemplary TOOTLE-TUM-TEH. + +One day there was grief in the crew, +For they hadn't a morsel of meat, +And BORRIA BUNGALEE BOO +Was dying for something to eat - +"Come, provide me with something to eat! + +"ALACK-A-DEY, famished I feel; +Oh, good little TOOTLE-TUM-TEH, +Where on earth shall I look for a meal? +For I haven't no dinner to-day! - +Not a morsel of dinner to-day! + +"Dear TOOTLE-TUM, what shall we do? +Come, get us a meal, or, in truth, +If you don't, we shall have to eat you, +Oh, adorable friend of our youth! +Thou beloved little friend of our youth!" + +And he answered, "Oh, BUNGALEE BOO, +For a moment I hope you will wait, - +TIPPY-WIPPITY TOL-THE-ROL-LOO +Is the Queen of a neighbouring state - +A remarkably neighbouring state. + +"TIPPY-WIPPITY TOL-THE-ROL-LOO, +She would pickle deliciously cold - +And her four pretty Amazons, too, +Are enticing, and not very old - +Twenty-seven is not very old. + +"There is neat little TITTY-FOL-LEH, +There is rollicking TRAL-THE-RAL-LAH, +There is jocular WAGGETY-WEH, +There is musical DOH-REH-MI-FAH - +There's the nightingale DOH-REH-MI-FAH!" + +So the forces of BUNGALEE BOO +Marched forth in a terrible row, +And the ladies who fought for QUEEN LOO +Prepared to encounter the foe - +This dreadful, insatiate foe! + +But they sharpened no weapons at all, +And they poisoned no arrows--not they! +They made ready to conquer or fall +In a totally different way - +An entirely different way. + +With a crimson and pearly-white dye +They endeavoured to make themselves fair, +With black they encircled each eye, +And with yellow they painted their hair +(It was wool, but they thought it was hair). + +And the forces they met in the field:- +And the men of KING BORRIA said, +"Amazonians, immediately yield!" +And their arrows they drew to the head - +Yes, drew them right up to the head. + +But jocular WAGGETY-WEH +Ogled DOODLE-DUM-DEY (which was wrong), +And neat little TITTY-FOL-LEH +Said, "TOOTLE-TUM, you go along! +You naughty old dear, go along!" + +And rollicking TRAL-THE-RAL-LAH +Tapped ALACK-A-DEY-AH with her fan; +And musical DOH-REH-MI-FAH +Said, "PISH, go away, you bad man! +Go away, you delightful young man!" + +And the Amazons simpered and sighed, +And they ogled, and giggled, and flushed, +And they opened their pretty eyes wide, +And they chuckled, and flirted, and blushed +(At least, if they could, they'd have blushed). + +But haughty PISH-TUSH-POOH-BAH +Said, "ALACK-A-DEY, what does this mean?" +And despairing ALACK-A-DEY-AH +Said, "They think us uncommonly green! +Ha! ha! most uncommonly green!" + +Even blundering DOODLE-DUM-DEY +Was insensible quite to their leers, +And said good little TOOTLE-TUM-TEH, +"It's your blood we desire, pretty dears - +We have come for our dinners, my dears!" + +And the Queen of the Amazons fell +To BORRIA BUNGALEE BOO, - +In a mouthful he gulped, with a yell, +TIPPY-WIPPITY TOL-THE-ROL-LOO - +The pretty QUEEN TOL-THE-ROL-LOO. + +And neat little TITTY-FOL-LEH +Was eaten by PISH-POOH-BAH, +And light-hearted WAGGETY-WEH +By dismal ALACK-A-DEY-AH - +Despairing ALACK-A-DEY-AH. + +And rollicking TRAL-THE-RAL-LAH +Was eaten by DOODLE-DUM-DEY, +And musical DOH-REH-MI-FAH +By good little TOOTLE-DUM-TEH - +Exemplary TOOTLE-TUM-TEH! + + + +Ballad: BOB POLTER. + + + +BOB POLTER was a navvy, and +His hands were coarse, and dirty too, +His homely face was rough and tanned, +His time of life was thirty-two. + +He lived among a working clan +(A wife he hadn't got at all), +A decent, steady, sober man - +No saint, however--not at all. + +He smoked, but in a modest way, +Because he thought he needed it; +He drank a pot of beer a day, +And sometimes he exceeded it. + +At times he'd pass with other men +A loud convivial night or two, +With, very likely, now and then, +On Saturdays, a fight or two. + +But still he was a sober soul, +A labour-never-shirking man, +Who paid his way--upon the whole +A decent English working man. + +One day, when at the Nelson's Head +(For which he may be blamed of you), +A holy man appeared, and said, +"Oh, ROBERT, I'm ashamed of you." + +He laid his hand on ROBERT'S beer +Before he could drink up any, +And on the floor, with sigh and tear, +He poured the pot of "thruppenny." + +"Oh, ROBERT, at this very bar +A truth you'll be discovering, +A good and evil genius are +Around your noddle hovering. + +"They both are here to bid you shun +The other one's society, +For Total Abstinence is one, +The other, Inebriety." + +He waved his hand--a vapour came - +A wizard POLTER reckoned him; +A bogy rose and called his name, +And with his finger beckoned him. + +The monster's salient points to sum, - +His heavy breath was portery: +His glowing nose suggested rum: +His eyes were gin-and-WORtery. + +His dress was torn--for dregs of ale +And slops of gin had rusted it; +His pimpled face was wan and pale, +Where filth had not encrusted it. + +"Come, POLTER," said the fiend, "begin, +And keep the bowl a-flowing on - +A working man needs pints of gin +To keep his clockwork going on." + +BOB shuddered: "Ah, you've made a miss +If you take me for one of you: +You filthy beast, get out of this - +BOB POLTER don't wan't none of you." + +The demon gave a drunken shriek, +And crept away in stealthiness, +And lo! instead, a person sleek, +Who seemed to burst with healthiness. + +"In me, as your adviser hints, +Of Abstinence you've got a type - +Of MR. TWEEDIE'S pretty prints +I am the happy prototype. + +"If you abjure the social toast, +And pipes, and such frivolities, +You possibly some day may boast +My prepossessing qualities!" + +BOB rubbed his eyes, and made 'em blink: +"You almost make me tremble, you! +If I abjure fermented drink, +Shall I, indeed, resemble you? + +"And will my whiskers curl so tight? +My cheeks grow smug and muttony? +My face become so red and white? +My coat so blue and buttony? + +"Will trousers, such as yours, array +Extremities inferior? +Will chubbiness assert its sway +All over my exterior? + +"In this, my unenlightened state, +To work in heavy boots I comes; +Will pumps henceforward decorate +My tiddle toddle tootsicums? + +"And shall I get so plump and fresh, +And look no longer seedily? +My skin will henceforth fit my flesh +So tightly and so TWEEDIE-ly?" + +The phantom said, "You'll have all this, +You'll know no kind of huffiness, +Your life will be one chubby bliss, +One long unruffled puffiness!" + +"Be off!" said irritated BOB. +"Why come you here to bother one? +You pharisaical old snob, +You're wuss almost than t'other one! + +"I takes my pipe--I takes my pot, +And drunk I'm never seen to be: +I'm no teetotaller or sot, +And as I am I mean to be!" + + + +Ballad: THE STORY OF PRINCE AGIB. + + + +Strike the concertina's melancholy string! +Blow the spirit-stirring harp like anything! +Let the piano's martial blast +Rouse the Echoes of the Past, +For of AGIB, PRINCE OF TARTARY, I sing! + +Of AGIB, who, amid Tartaric scenes, +Wrote a lot of ballet music in his teens: +His gentle spirit rolls +In the melody of souls - +Which is pretty, but I don't know what it means. + +Of AGIB, who could readily, at sight, +Strum a march upon the loud Theodolite. +He would diligently play +On the Zoetrope all day, +And blow the gay Pantechnicon all night. + +One winter--I am shaky in my dates - +Came two starving Tartar minstrels to his gates; +Oh, ALLAH be obeyed, +How infernally they played! +I remember that they called themselves the "Ouaits." + +Oh! that day of sorrow, misery, and rage, +I shall carry to the Catacombs of Age, +Photographically lined +On the tablet of my mind, +When a yesterday has faded from its page! + +Alas! PRINCE AGIB went and asked them in; +Gave them beer, and eggs, and sweets, and scent, and tin. +And when (as snobs would say) +They had "put it all away," +He requested them to tune up and begin. + +Though its icy horror chill you to the core, +I will tell you what I never told before, - +The consequences true +Of that awful interview, +FOR I LISTENED AT THE KEYHOLE IN THE DOOR! + +They played him a sonata--let me see! +"Medulla oblongata"--key of G. +Then they began to sing +That extremely lovely thing, +Scherzando! ma non troppo, ppp." + +He gave them money, more than they could count, +Scent from a most ingenious little fount, +More beer, in little kegs, +Many dozen hard-boiled eggs, +And goodies to a fabulous amount. + +Now follows the dim horror of my tale, +And I feel I'm growing gradually pale, +For, even at this day, +Though its sting has passed away, +When I venture to remember it, I quail! + +The elder of the brothers gave a squeal, +All-overish it made me for to feel; +"Oh, PRINCE," he says, says he, +"IF A PRINCE INDEED YOU BE, +I've a mystery I'm going to reveal! + +"Oh, listen, if you'd shun a horrid death, +To what the gent who's speaking to you saith: +No 'Ouaits' in truth are we, +As you fancy that we be, +For (ter-remble!) I am ALECK--this is BETH!" + +Said AGIB, "Oh! accursed of your kind, +I have heard that ye are men of evil mind!" +BETH gave a dreadful shriek - +But before he'd time to speak +I was mercilessly collared from behind. + +In number ten or twelve, or even more, +They fastened me full length upon the floor. +On my face extended flat, +I was walloped with a cat +For listening at the keyhole of a door. + +Oh! the horror of that agonizing thrill! +(I can feel the place in frosty weather still). +For a week from ten to four +I was fastened to the floor, +While a mercenary wopped me with a will + +They branded me and broke me on a wheel, +And they left me in an hospital to heal; +And, upon my solemn word, +I have never never heard +What those Tartars had determined to reveal. + +But that day of sorrow, misery, and rage, +I shall carry to the Catacombs of Age, +Photographically lined +On the tablet of my mind, +When a yesterday has faded from its page + + + +Ballad: ELLEN McJONES ABERDEEN. + + + +MACPHAIRSON CLONGLOCKETTY ANGUS McCLAN +Was the son of an elderly labouring man; +You've guessed him a Scotchman, shrewd reader, at sight, +And p'r'aps altogether, shrewd reader, you're right. + +From the bonnie blue Forth to the lovely Deeside, +Round by Dingwall and Wrath to the mouth of the Clyde, +There wasn't a child or a woman or man +Who could pipe with CLONGLOCKETTY ANGUS McCLAN. + +No other could wake such detestable groans, +With reed and with chaunter--with bag and with drones: +All day and ill night he delighted the chiels +With sniggering pibrochs and jiggety reels. + +He'd clamber a mountain and squat on the ground, +And the neighbouring maidens would gather around +To list to the pipes and to gaze in his een, +Especially ELLEN McJONES ABERDEEN. + +All loved their McCLAN, save a Sassenach brute, +Who came to the Highlands to fish and to shoot; +He dressed himself up in a Highlander way, +Tho' his name it was PATTISON CORBY TORBAY. + +TORBAY had incurred a good deal of expense +To make him a Scotchman in every sense; +But this is a matter, you'll readily own, +That isn't a question of tailors alone. + +A Sassenach chief may be bonily built, +He may purchase a sporran, a bonnet, and kilt; +Stick a skean in his hose--wear an acre of stripes - +But he cannot assume an affection for pipes. + +CLONGLOCKETY'S pipings all night and all day +Quite frenzied poor PATTISON CORBY TORBAY; +The girls were amused at his singular spleen, +Especially ELLEN McJONES ABERDEEN, + +"MACPHAIRSON CLONGLOCKETTY ANGUS, my lad, +With pibrochs and reels you are driving me mad. +If you really must play on that cursed affair, +My goodness! play something resembling an air." + +Boiled over the blood of MACPHAIRSON McCLAN - +The Clan of Clonglocketty rose as one man; +For all were enraged at the insult, I ween - +Especially ELLEN McJONES ABERDEEN. + +"Let's show," said McCLAN, "to this Sassenach loon +That the bagpipes CAN play him a regular tune. +Let's see," said McCLAN, as he thoughtfully sat, +"'IN MY COTTAGE' is easy--I'll practise at that." + +He blew at his "Cottage," and blew with a will, +For a year, seven months, and a fortnight, until +(You'll hardly believe it) McCLAN, I declare, +Elicited something resembling an air. + +It was wild--it was fitful--as wild as the breeze - +It wandered about into several keys; +It was jerky, spasmodic, and harsh, I'm aware; +But still it distinctly suggested an air. + +The Sassenach screamed, and the Sassenach danced; +He shrieked in his agony--bellowed and pranced; +And the maidens who gathered rejoiced at the scene - +Especially ELLEN McJONES ABERDEEN. + +"Hech gather, hech gather, hech gather around; +And fill a' ye lugs wi' the exquisite sound. +An air fra' the bagpipes--beat that if ye can! +Hurrah for CLONGLOCKETTY ANGUS McCLAN!" + +The fame of his piping spread over the land: +Respectable widows proposed for his hand, +And maidens came flocking to sit on the green - +Especially ELLEN McJONES ABERDEEN. + +One morning the fidgety Sassenach swore +He'd stand it no longer--he drew his claymore, +And (this was, I think, in extremely bad taste) +Divided CLONGLOCKETTY close to the waist. + +Oh! loud were the wailings for ANGUS McCLAN, +Oh! deep was the grief for that excellent man; +The maids stood aghast at the horrible scene - +Especially ELLEN McJONES ABERDEEN. + +It sorrowed poor PATTISON CORBY TORBAY +To find them "take on" in this serious way; +He pitied the poor little fluttering birds, +And solaced their souls with the following words: + +"Oh, maidens," said PATTISON, touching his hat, +"Don't blubber, my dears, for a fellow like that; +Observe, I'm a very superior man, +A much better fellow than ANGUS McCLAN." + +They smiled when he winked and addressed them as "dears," +And they all of them vowed, as they dried up their tears, +A pleasanter gentleman never was seen - +Especially ELLEN McJONES ABERDEEN. + + + +Ballad: PETER THE WAG. + + + +Policeman PETER FORTH I drag +From his obscure retreat: +He was a merry genial wag, +Who loved a mad conceit. +If he were asked the time of day, +By country bumpkins green, +He not unfrequently would say, +"A quarter past thirteen." + +If ever you by word of mouth +Inquired of MISTER FORTH +The way to somewhere in the South, +He always sent you North. +With little boys his beat along +He loved to stop and play; +He loved to send old ladies wrong, +And teach their feet to stray. + +He would in frolic moments, when +Such mischief bent upon, +Take Bishops up as betting men - +Bid Ministers move on. +Then all the worthy boys he knew +He regularly licked, +And always collared people who +Had had their pockets picked. + +He was not naturally bad, +Or viciously inclined, +But from his early youth he had +A waggish turn of mind. +The Men of London grimly scowled +With indignation wild; +The Men of London gruffly growled, +But PETER calmly smiled. + +Against this minion of the Crown +The swelling murmurs grew - +From Camberwell to Kentish Town - +From Rotherhithe to Kew. +Still humoured he his wagsome turn, +And fed in various ways +The coward rage that dared to burn, +But did not dare to blaze. + +Still, Retribution has her day, +Although her flight is slow: +ONE DAY THAT CRUSHER LOST HIS WAY +NEAR POLAND STREET, SOHO. +The haughty boy, too proud to ask, +To find his way resolved, +And in the tangle of his task +Got more and more involved. + +The Men of London, overjoyed, +Came there to jeer their foe, +And flocking crowds completely cloyed +The mazes of Soho. +The news on telegraphic wires +Sped swiftly o'er the lea, +Excursion trains from distant shires +Brought myriads to see. + +For weeks he trod his self-made beats +Through Newport- Gerrard- Bear- +Greek- Rupert- Frith- Dean- Poland- Streets, +And into Golden Square. +But all, alas! in vain, for when +He tried to learn the way +Of little boys or grown-up men, +They none of them would say. + +Their eyes would flash--their teeth would grind - +Their lips would tightly curl - +They'd say, "Thy way thyself must find, +Thou misdirecting churl!" +And, similarly, also, when +He tried a foreign friend; +Italians answered, "Il balen" - +The French, "No comprehend." + +The Russ would say with gleaming eye +" Sevastopol!" and groan. +The Greek said, [Greek text which cannot +be reproduced]." +To wander thus for many a year +That Crusher never ceased - +The Men of London dropped a tear, +Their anger was appeased + +At length exploring gangs were sent +To find poor FORTH'S remains - +A handsome grant by Parliament +Was voted for their pains. +To seek the poor policeman out +Bold spirits volunteered, +And when they swore they'd solve the doubt, +The Men of London cheered. + +And in a yard, dark, dank, and drear, +They found him, on the floor - +It leads from Richmond Buildings--near +The Royalty stage-door. +With brandy cold and brandy hot +They plied him, starved and wet, +And made him sergeant on the spot - +The Men of London's pet! + + + +Ballad: TO THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE. BY A MISERABLE WRETCH. + + + +Roll on, thou ball, roll on! +Through pathless realms of Space +Roll on! +What though I'm in a sorry case? +What though I cannot meet my bills? +What though I suffer toothache's ills? +What though I swallow countless pills? +Never YOU mind! +Roll on! + +Roll on, thou ball, roll on! +Through seas of inky air +Roll on! +It's true I've got no shirts to wear; +It's true my butcher's bill is due; +It's true my prospects all look blue - +But don't let that unsettle you! +Never YOU mind! +Roll on! + +[IT ROLLS ON. + + + +Ballad: GENTLE ALICE BROWN. + + + +It was a robber's daughter, and her name was ALICE BROWN, +Her father was the terror of a small Italian town; +Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing; +But it isn't of her parents that I'm going for to sing. + +As ALICE was a-sitting at her window-sill one day, +A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way; +She cast her eyes upon him, and he looked so good and true, +That she thought, "I could be happy with a gentleman like you!" + +And every morning passed her house that cream of gentlemen, +She knew she might expect him at a quarter unto ten; +A sorter in the Custom-house, it was his daily road +(The Custom-house was fifteen minutes' walk from her abode). + +But ALICE was a pious girl, who knew it wasn't wise +To look at strange young sorters with expressive purple eyes; +So she sought the village priest to whom her family confessed, +The priest by whom their little sins were carefully assessed. + +"Oh, holy father," ALICE said, "'t would grieve you, would it not, +To discover that I was a most disreputable lot? +Of all unhappy sinners I'm the most unhappy one!" +The padre said, "Whatever have you been and gone and done?" + +"I have helped mamma to steal a little kiddy from its dad, +I've assisted dear papa in cutting up a little lad, +I've planned a little burglary and forged a little cheque, +And slain a little baby for the coral on its neck!" + +The worthy pastor heaved a sigh, and dropped a silent tear, +And said, "You mustn't judge yourself too heavily, my dear: +It's wrong to murder babies, little corals for to fleece; +But sins like these one expiates at half-a-crown apiece. + +"Girls will be girls--you're very young, and flighty in your mind; +Old heads upon young shoulders we must not expect to find: +We mustn't be too hard upon these little girlish tricks - +Let's see--five crimes at half-a-crown--exactly twelve-and-six." + +"Oh, father," little Alice cried, "your kindness makes me weep, +You do these little things for me so singularly cheap - +Your thoughtful liberality I never can forget; +But, oh! there is another crime I haven't mentioned yet! + +"A pleasant-looking gentleman, with pretty purple eyes, +I've noticed at my window, as I've sat a-catching flies; +He passes by it every day as certain as can be - +I blush to say I've winked at him, and he has winked at me!" + +"For shame!" said FATHER PAUL, "my erring daughter! On my word +This is the most distressing news that I have ever heard. +Why, naughty girl, your excellent papa has pledged your hand +To a promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band! + +"This dreadful piece of news will pain your worthy parents so! +They are the most remunerative customers I know; +For many many years they've kept starvation from my doors: +I never knew so criminal a family as yours! + +"The common country folk in this insipid neighbourhood +Have nothing to confess, they're so ridiculously good; +And if you marry any one respectable at all, +Why, you'll reform, and what will then become of FATHER PAUL?" + +The worthy priest, he up and drew his cowl upon his crown, +And started off in haste to tell the news to ROBBER BROWN - +To tell him how his daughter, who was now for marriage fit, +Had winked upon a sorter, who reciprocated it. + +Good ROBBER BROWN he muffled up his anger pretty well: +He said, "I have a notion, and that notion I will tell; +I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits, +And get my gentle wife to chop him into little bits. + +"I've studied human nature, and I know a thing or two: +Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do - +A feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall +When she looks upon his body chopped particularly small." + +He traced that gallant sorter to a still suburban square; +He watched his opportunity, and seized him unaware; +He took a life-preserver and he hit him on the head, +And MRS. BROWN dissected him before she went to bed. + +And pretty little ALICE grew more settled in her mind, +She never more was guilty of a weakness of the kind, +Until at length good ROBBER BROWN bestowed her pretty hand +On the promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band. + + + +Ballad: MISTER WILLIAM. + + + +Oh, listen to the tale of MISTER WILLIAM, if you please, +Whom naughty, naughty judges sent away beyond the seas. +He forged a party's will, which caused anxiety and strife, +Resulting in his getting penal servitude for life. + +He was a kindly goodly man, and naturally prone, +Instead of taking others' gold, to give away his own. +But he had heard of Vice, and longed for only once to strike - +To plan ONE little wickedness--to see what it was like. + +He argued with himself, and said, "A spotless man am I; +I can't be more respectable, however hard I try! +For six and thirty years I've always been as good as gold, +And now for half an hour I'll plan infamy untold! + +"A baby who is wicked at the early age of one, +And then reforms--and dies at thirty-six a spotless son, +Is never, never saddled with his babyhood's defect, +But earns from worthy men consideration and respect. + +"So one who never revelled in discreditable tricks +Until he reached the comfortable age of thirty-six, +May then for half an hour perpetrate a deed of shame, +Without incurring permanent disgrace, or even blame. + +"That babies don't commit such crimes as forgery is true, +But little sins develop, if you leave 'em to accrue; +And he who shuns all vices as successive seasons roll, +Should reap at length the benefit of so much self-control. + +"The common sin of babyhood--objecting to be drest - +If you leave it to accumulate at compound interest, +For anything you know, may represent, if you're alive, +A burglary or murder at the age of thirty-five. + +"Still, I wouldn't take advantage of this fact, but be content +With some pardonable folly--it's a mere experiment. +The greater the temptation to go wrong, the less the sin; +So with something that's particularly tempting I'll begin. + +"I would not steal a penny, for my income's very fair - +I do not want a penny--I have pennies and to spare - +And if I stole a penny from a money-bag or till, +The sin would be enormous--the temptation being nil. + +"But if I broke asunder all such pettifogging bounds, +And forged a party's Will for (say) Five Hundred Thousand Pounds, +With such an irresistible temptation to a haul, +Of course the sin must be infinitesimally small. + +"There's WILSON who is dying--he has wealth from Stock and rent - +If I divert his riches from their natural descent, +I'm placed in a position to indulge each little whim." +So he diverted them--and they, in turn, diverted him. + +Unfortunately, though, by some unpardonable flaw, +Temptation isn't recognized by Britain's Common Law; +Men found him out by some peculiarity of touch, +And WILLIAM got a "lifer," which annoyed him very much. + +For, ah! he never reconciled himself to life in gaol, +He fretted and he pined, and grew dispirited and pale; +He was numbered like a cabman, too, which told upon him so +That his spirits, once so buoyant, grew uncomfortably low. + +And sympathetic gaolers would remark, "It's very true, +He ain't been brought up common, like the likes of me and you." +So they took him into hospital, and gave him mutton chops, +And chocolate, and arrowroot, and buns, and malt and hops. + +Kind Clergymen, besides, grew interested in his fate, +Affected by the details of his pitiable state. +They waited on the Secretary, somewhere in Whitehall, +Who said he would receive them any day they liked to call. + +"Consider, sir, the hardship of this interesting case: +A prison life brings with it something very like disgrace; +It's telling on young WILLIAM, who's reduced to skin and bone - +Remember he's a gentleman, with money of his own. + +"He had an ample income, and of course he stands in need +Of sherry with his dinner, and his customary weed; +No delicacies now can pass his gentlemanly lips - +He misses his sea-bathing and his continental trips. + +"He says the other prisoners are commonplace and rude; +He says he cannot relish uncongenial prison food. +When quite a boy they taught him to distinguish Good from Bad, +And other educational advantages he's had. + +"A burglar or garotter, or, indeed, a common thief +Is very glad to batten on potatoes and on beef, +Or anything, in short, that prison kitchens can afford, - +A cut above the diet in a common workhouse ward. + +"But beef and mutton-broth don't seem to suit our WILLIAM'S whim, +A boon to other prisoners--a punishment to him. +It never was intended that the discipline of gaol +Should dash a convict's spirits, sir, or make him thin or pale." + +"Good Gracious Me!" that sympathetic Secretary cried, +"Suppose in prison fetters MISTER WILLIAM should have died! +Dear me, of course! Imprisonment for LIFE his sentence saith: +I'm very glad you mentioned it--it might have been For Death! + +"Release him with a ticket--he'll be better then, no doubt, +And tell him I apologize." So MISTER WILLIAM'S out. +I hope he will be careful in his manuscripts, I'm sure, +And not begin experimentalizing any more. + + + +Ballad: THE BUMBOAT WOMAN'S STORY. + + + +I'm old, my dears, and shrivelled with age, and work, and grief, +My eyes are gone, and my teeth have been drawn by Time, the Thief! +For terrible sights I've seen, and dangers great I've run - +I'm nearly seventy now, and my work is almost done! + +Ah! I've been young in my time, and I've played the deuce with +men! +I'm speaking of ten years past--I was barely sixty then: +My cheeks were mellow and soft, and my eyes were large and sweet, +POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes were the standing toast of the Royal Fleet! + +A bumboat woman was I, and I faithfully served the ships +With apples and cakes, and fowls, and beer, and halfpenny dips, +And beef for the generous mess, where the officers dine at nights, +And fine fresh peppermint drops for the rollicking midshipmites. + +Of all the kind commanders who anchored in Portsmouth Bay, +By far the sweetest of all was kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.' +LIEUTENANT BELAYE commanded the gunboat Hot Cross Bun, +She was seven and thirty feet in length, and she carried a gun. + +With a laudable view of enhancing his country's naval pride, +When people inquired her size, LIEUTENANT BELAYE replied, +"Oh, my ship, my ship is the first of the Hundred and Seventy- +ones!" +Which meant her tonnage, but people imagined it meant her guns. + +Whenever I went on board he would beckon me down below, +"Come down, Little Buttercup, come" (for he loved to call me so), +And he'd tell of the fights at sea in which he'd taken a part, +And so LIEUTENANT BELAYE won poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S heart! + +But at length his orders came, and he said one day, said he, +"I'm ordered to sail with the Hot Cross Bun to the German Sea." +And the Portsmouth maidens wept when they learnt the evil day, +For every Portsmouth maid loved good LIEUTENANT BELAYE. + +And I went to a back back street, with plenty of cheap cheap shops, +And I bought an oilskin hat and a second-hand suit of slops, +And I went to LIEUTENANT BELAYE (and he never suspected ME!) +And I entered myself as a chap as wanted to go to sea. + +We sailed that afternoon at the mystic hour of one, - +Remarkably nice young men were the crew of the Hot Cross Bun, +I'm sorry to say that I've heard that sailors sometimes swear, +But I never yet heard a Bun say anything wrong, I declare. + +When Jack Tars meet, they meet with a "Messmate, ho! What cheer?" +But here, on the Hot Cross Bun, it was "How do you do, my dear?" +When Jack Tars growl, I believe they growl with a big big D- +But the strongest oath of the Hot Cross Buns was a mild "Dear me!" + +Yet, though they were all well-bred, you could scarcely call them +slick: +Whenever a sea was on, they were all extremely sick; +And whenever the weather was calm, and the wind was light and fair, +They spent more time than a sailor should on his back back hair. + +They certainly shivered and shook when ordered aloft to run, +And they screamed when LIEUTENANT BELAYE discharged his only gun. +And as he was proud of his gun--such pride is hardly wrong - +The Lieutenant was blazing away at intervals all day long. + +They all agreed very well, though at times you heard it said +That BILL had a way of his own of making his lips look red - +That JOE looked quite his age--or somebody might declare +That BARNACLE'S long pig-tail was never his own own hair. + +BELAYE would admit that his men were of no great use to him, +"But, then," he would say, "there is little to do on a gunboat trim +I can hand, and reef, and steer, and fire my big gun too - +And it IS such a treat to sail with a gentle well-bred crew." + +I saw him every day. How the happy moments sped! +Reef topsails! Make all taut! There's dirty weather ahead! +(I do not mean that tempests threatened the Hot Cross Bun: +In THAT case, I don't know whatever we SHOULD have done!) + +After a fortnight's cruise, we put into port one day, +And off on leave for a week went kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE, +And after a long long week had passed (and it seemed like a life), +LIEUTENANT BELAYE returned to his ship with a fair young wife! + +He up, and he says, says he, "O crew of the Hot Cross Bun, +Here is the wife of my heart, for the Church has made us one!" +And as he uttered the word, the crew went out of their wits, +And all fell down in so many separate fainting-fits. + +And then their hair came down, or off, as the case might be, +And lo! the rest of the crew were simple girls, like me, +Who all had fled from their homes in a sailor's blue array, +To follow the shifting fate of kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE. + +* * * * * * * * + +It's strange to think that _I_ should ever have loved young men, +But I'm speaking of ten years past--I was barely sixty then, +And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and age, I trow! +And poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes have lost their lustre now! + + + +Ballad: LOST MR. BLAKE. + + + +MR. BLAKE was a regular out-and-out hardened sinner, +Who was quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak, +He was in the habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a glass of +grog on a Sunday after dinner, +And seldom thought of going to church more than twice or--if Good +Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in it--three times a week. + +He was quite indifferent as to the particular kinds of dresses +That the clergyman wore at church where he used to go to pray, +And whatever he did in the way of relieving a chap's distresses, +He always did in a nasty, sneaking, underhanded, hole-and-corner +sort of way. + +I have known him indulge in profane, ungentlemanly emphatics, +When the Protestant Church has been divided on the subject of the +proper width of a chasuble's hem; +I have even known him to sneer at albs--and as for dalmatics, +Words can't convey an idea of the contempt he expressed for THEM. + +He didn't believe in persons who, not being well off themselves, +are obliged to confine their charitable exertions to collecting +money from wealthier people, +And looked upon individuals of the former class as ecclesiastical +hawks; +He used to say that he would no more think of interfering with his +priest's robes than with his church or his steeple, +And that he did not consider his soul imperilled because somebody +over whom he had no influence whatever, chose to dress himself up +like an exaggerated GUY FAWKES. + +This shocking old vagabond was so unutterably shameless +That he actually went a-courting a very respectable and pious +middle-aged sister, by the name of BIGGS. +She was a rather attractive widow, whose life as such had always +been particularly blameless; +Her first husband had left her a secure but moderate competence, +owing to some fortunate speculations in the matter of figs. + +She was an excellent person in every way--and won the respect even +of MRS. GRUNDY, +She was a good housewife, too, and wouldn't have wasted a penny if +she had owned the Koh-i-noor. +She was just as strict as he was lax in her observance of Sunday, +And being a good economist, and charitable besides, she took all +the bones and cold potatoes and broken pie-crusts and candle-ends +(when she had quite done with them), and made them into an +excellent soup for the deserving poor. + +I am sorry to say that she rather took to BLAKE--that outcast of +society, +And when respectable brothers who were fond of her began to look +dubious and to cough, +She would say, "Oh, my friends, it's because I hope to bring this +poor benighted soul back to virtue and propriety, +And besides, the poor benighted soul, with all his faults, was +uncommonly well off. + +And when MR. BLAKE'S dissipated friends called his attention to the +frown or the pout of her, +Whenever he did anything which appeared to her to savour of an +unmentionable place, +He would say that "she would be a very decent old girl when all +that nonsense was knocked out of her," +And his method of knocking it out of her is one that covered him +with disgrace. + +She was fond of going to church services four times every Sunday, +and, four or five times in the week, and never seemed to pall of +them, +So he hunted out all the churches within a convenient distance that +had services at different hours, so to speak; +And when he had married her he positively insisted upon their going +to all of them, +So they contrived to do about twelve churches every Sunday, and, if +they had luck, from twenty-two to twenty-three in the course of the +week. + +She was fond of dropping his sovereigns ostentatiously into the +plate, and she liked to see them stand out rather conspicuously +against the commonplace half-crowns and shillings, +So he took her to all the charity sermons, and if by any +extraordinary chance there wasn't a charity sermon anywhere, he +would drop a couple of sovereigns (one for him and one for her) +into the poor-box at the door; +And as he always deducted the sums thus given in charity from the +housekeeping money, and the money he allowed her for her bonnets +and frillings, +She soon began to find that even charity, if you allow it to +interfere with your personal luxuries, becomes an intolerable bore. + +On Sundays she was always melancholy and anything but good society, +For that day in her household was a day of sighings and sobbings +and wringing of hands and shaking of heads: +She wouldn't hear of a button being sewn on a glove, because it was +a work neither of necessity nor of piety, +And strictly prohibited her servants from amusing themselves, or +indeed doing anything at all except dusting the drawing-rooms, +cleaning the boots and shoes, cooking the parlour dinner, waiting +generally on the family, and making the beds. +But BLAKE even went further than that, and said that people should +do their own works of necessity, and not delegate them to persons +in a menial situation, +So he wouldn't allow his servants to do so much as even answer a +bell. +Here he is making his wife carry up the water for her bath to the +second floor, much against her inclination, - +And why in the world the gentleman who illustrates these ballads +has put him in a cocked hat is more than I can tell. + +After about three months of this sort of thing, taking the smooth +with the rough of it, +(Blacking her own boots and peeling her own potatoes was not her +notion of connubial bliss), +MRS. BLAKE began to find that she had pretty nearly had enough of +it, +And came, in course of time, to think that BLAKE'S own original +line of conduct wasn't so much amiss. + +And now that wicked person--that detestable sinner ("BELIAL BLAKE" +his friends and well-wishers call him for his atrocities), +And his poor deluded victim, whom all her Christian brothers +dislike and pity so, +Go to the parish church only on Sunday morning and afternoon and +occasionally on a week-day, and spend their evenings in connubial +fondlings and affectionate reciprocities, +And I should like to know where in the world (or rather, out of it) +they expect to go! + + + +Ballad: THE BABY'S VENGEANCE. + + + +Weary at heart and extremely ill +Was PALEY VOLLAIRE of Bromptonville, +In a dirty lodging, with fever down, +Close to the Polygon, Somers Town. + +PALEY VOLLAIRE was an only son +(For why? His mother had had but one), +And PALEY inherited gold and grounds +Worth several hundred thousand pounds. + +But he, like many a rich young man, +Through this magnificent fortune ran, +And nothing was left for his daily needs +But duplicate copies of mortgage-deeds. + +Shabby and sorry and sorely sick, +He slept, and dreamt that the clock's "tick, tick," +Was one of the Fates, with a long sharp knife, +Snicking off bits of his shortened life. + +He woke and counted the pips on the walls, +The outdoor passengers' loud footfalls, +And reckoned all over, and reckoned again, +The little white tufts on his counterpane. + +A medical man to his bedside came. +(I can't remember that doctor's name), +And said, "You'll die in a very short while +If you don't set sail for Madeira's isle." + +"Go to Madeira? goodness me! +I haven't the money to pay your fee!" +"Then, PALEY VOLLAIRE," said the leech, "good bye; +I'll come no more, for your're sure to die." + +He sighed and he groaned and smote his breast; +"Oh, send," said he, "for FREDERICK WEST, +Ere senses fade or my eyes grow dim: +I've a terrible tale to whisper him!" + +Poor was FREDERICK'S lot in life, - +A dustman he with a fair young wife, +A worthy man with a hard-earned store, +A hundred and seventy pounds--or more. + +FREDERICK came, and he said, "Maybe +You'll say what you happened to want with me?" +"Wronged boy," said PALEY VOLLAIRE, "I will, +But don't you fidget yourself--sit still." + + +THE TERRIBLE TALE. + + +"'Tis now some thirty-seven years ago +Since first began the plot that I'm revealing, +A fine young woman, whom you ought to know, +Lived with her husband down in Drum Lane, Ealing. +Herself by means of mangling reimbursing, +And now and then (at intervals) wet-nursing. + +"Two little babes dwelt in their humble cot: +One was her own--the other only lent to her: +HER OWN SHE SLIGHTED. Tempted by a lot +Of gold and silver regularly sent to her, +She ministered unto the little other +In the capacity of foster-mother. + +"I WAS HER OWN. Oh! how I lay and sobbed +In my poor cradle--deeply, deeply cursing +The rich man's pampered bantling, who had robbed +My only birthright--an attentive nursing! +Sometimes in hatred of my foster-brother, +I gnashed my gums--which terrified my mother. + +"One day--it was quite early in the week - +I IN MY CRADLE HAVING PLACED THE BANTLING - +Crept into his! He had not learnt to speak, +But I could see his face with anger mantling. +It was imprudent--well, disgraceful maybe, +For, oh! I was a bad, blackhearted baby! + +"So great a luxury was food, I think +No wickedness but I was game to try for it. +NOW if I wanted anything to drink +At any time, I only had to cry for it! +ONCE, if I dared to weep, the bottle lacking, +My blubbering involved a serious smacking! + +"We grew up in the usual way--my friend, +My foster-brother, daily growing thinner, +While gradually I began to mend, +And thrived amazingly on double dinner. +And every one, besides my foster-mother, +Believed that either of us was the other. + +"I came into HIS wealth--I bore HIS name, +I bear it still--HIS property I squandered - +I mortgaged everything--and now (oh, shame!) +Into a Somers Town shake-down I've wandered! +I am no PALEY--no, VOLLAIRE--it's true, my boy! +The only rightful PALEY V. is YOU, my boy! + +"And all I have is yours--and yours is mine. +I still may place you in your true position: +Give me the pounds you've saved, and I'll resign +My noble name, my rank, and my condition. +So far my wickedness in falsely owning +Your vasty wealth, I am at last atoning!" + +* * * * * * * + +FREDERICK he was a simple soul, +He pulled from his pocket a bulky roll, +And gave to PALEY his hard-earned store, +A hundred and seventy pounds or more. + +PALEY VOLLAIRE, with many a groan, +Gave FREDERICK all that he called his own, - +Two shirts and a sock, and a vest of jean, +A Wellington boot and a bamboo cane. + +And FRED (entitled to all things there) +He took the fever from MR. VOLLAIRE, +Which killed poor FREDERICK WEST. Meanwhile +VOLLAIRE sailed off to Madeira's isle. + + + +Ballad: THE CAPTAIN AND THE MERMAIDS. + + + +I sing a legend of the sea, +So hard-a-port upon your lee! +A ship on starboard tack! +She's bound upon a private cruise - +(This is the kind of spice I use +To give a salt-sea smack). + +Behold, on every afternoon +(Save in a gale or strong Monsoon) +Great CAPTAIN CAPEL CLEGGS +(Great morally, though rather short) +Sat at an open weather-port +And aired his shapely legs. + +And Mermaids hung around in flocks, +On cable chains and distant rocks, +To gaze upon those limbs; +For legs like those, of flesh and bone, +Are things "not generally known" +To any Merman TIMBS. + +But Mermen didn't seem to care +Much time (as far as I'm aware) +With CLEGGS'S legs to spend; +Though Mermaids swam around all day +And gazed, exclaiming, "THAT'S the way +A gentleman should end! + +"A pair of legs with well-cut knees, +And calves and ankles such as these +Which we in rapture hail, +Are far more eloquent, it's clear +(When clothed in silk and kerseymere), +Than any nasty tail." + +And CLEGGS--a worthy kind old boy - +Rejoiced to add to others' joy, +And, when the day was dry, +Because it pleased the lookers-on, +He sat from morn till night--though con- +Stitutionally shy. + +At first the Mermen laughed, "Pooh! pooh!" +But finally they jealous grew, +And sounded loud recalls; +But vainly. So these fishy males +Declared they too would clothe their tails +In silken hose and smalls. + +They set to work, these water-men, +And made their nether robes--but when +They drew with dainty touch +The kerseymere upon their tails, +They found it scraped against their scales, +And hurt them very much. + +The silk, besides, with which they chose +To deck their tails by way of hose +(They never thought of shoon), +For such a use was much too thin, - +It tore against the caudal fin, +And "went in ladders" soon. + +So they designed another plan: +They sent their most seductive man +This note to him to show - +"Our Monarch sends to CAPTAIN CLEGGS +His humble compliments, and begs +He'll join him down below; + +"We've pleasant homes below the sea - +Besides, if CAPTAIN CLEGGS should be +(As our advices say) +A judge of Mermaids, he will find +Our lady-fish of every kind +Inspection will repay." + +Good CAPEL sent a kind reply, +For CAPEL thought he could descry +An admirable plan +To study all their ways and laws - +(But not their lady-fish, because +He was a married man). + +The Merman sank--the Captain too +Jumped overboard, and dropped from view +Like stone from catapult; +And when he reached the Merman's lair, +He certainly was welcomed there, +But, ah! with what result? + +They didn't let him learn their law, +Or make a note of what he saw, +Or interesting mem.: +The lady-fish he couldn't find, +But that, of course, he didn't mind - +He didn't come for them. + +For though, when CAPTAIN CAPEL sank, +The Mermen drawn in double rank +Gave him a hearty hail, +Yet when secure of CAPTAIN CLEGGS, +They cut off both his lovely legs, +And gave him SUCH a tail! + +When CAPTAIN CLEGGS returned aboard, +His blithesome crew convulsive roar'd, +To see him altered so. +The Admiralty did insist +That he upon the Half-pay List +Immediately should go. + +In vain declared the poor old salt, +"It's my misfortune--not my fault," +With tear and trembling lip - +In vain poor CAPEL begged and begged. +"A man must be completely legged +Who rules a British ship." + +So spake the stern First Lord aloud - +He was a wag, though very proud, +And much rejoiced to say, +"You're only half a captain now - +And so, my worthy friend, I vow +You'll only get half-pay!" + + + +Ballad: ANNIE PROTHEROE. A LEGEND OF STRATFORD-LE-BOW. + + + +Oh! listen to the tale of little ANNIE PROTHEROE. +She kept a small post-office in the neighbourhood of BOW; +She loved a skilled mechanic, who was famous in his day - +A gentle executioner whose name was GILBERT CLAY. + +I think I hear you say, "A dreadful subject for your rhymes!" +O reader, do not shrink--he didn't live in modern times! +He lived so long ago (the sketch will show it at a glance) +That all his actions glitter with the lime-light of Romance. + +In busy times he laboured at his gentle craft all day - +"No doubt you mean his Cal-craft," you amusingly will say - +But, no--he didn't operate with common bits of string, +He was a Public Headsman, which is quite another thing. + +And when his work was over, they would ramble o'er the lea, +And sit beneath the frondage of an elderberry tree, +And ANNIE'S simple prattle entertained him on his walk, +For public executions formed the subject of her talk. + +And sometimes he'd explain to her, which charmed her very much, +How famous operators vary very much in touch, +And then, perhaps, he'd show how he himself performed the trick, +And illustrate his meaning with a poppy and a stick. + +Or, if it rained, the little maid would stop at home, and look +At his favourable notices, all pasted in a book, +And then her cheek would flush--her swimming eyes would dance with +joy +In a glow of admiration at the prowess of her boy. + +One summer eve, at supper-time, the gentle GILBERT said +(As he helped his pretty ANNIE to a slice of collared head), +"This reminds me I must settle on the next ensuing day +The hash of that unmitigated villain PETER GRAY." + +He saw his ANNIE tremble and he saw his ANNIE start, +Her changing colour trumpeted the flutter at her heart; +Young GILBERT'S manly bosom rose and sank with jealous fear, +And he said, "O gentle ANNIE, what's the meaning of this here?" + +And ANNIE answered, blushing in an interesting way, +"You think, no doubt, I'm sighing for that felon PETER GRAY: +That I was his young woman is unquestionably true, +But not since I began a-keeping company with you." + +Then GILBERT, who was irritable, rose and loudly swore +He'd know the reason why if she refused to tell him more; +And she answered (all the woman in her flashing from her eyes) +"You mustn't ask no questions, and you won't be told no lies! + +"Few lovers have the privilege enjoyed, my dear, by you, +Of chopping off a rival's head and quartering him too! +Of vengeance, dear, to-morrow you will surely take your fill!" +And GILBERT ground his molars as he answered her, "I will!" + +Young GILBERT rose from table with a stern determined look, +And, frowning, took an inexpensive hatchet from its hook; +And ANNIE watched his movements with an interested air - +For the morrow--for the morrow he was going to prepare! + +He chipped it with a hammer and he chopped it with a bill, +He poured sulphuric acid on the edge of it, until +This terrible Avenger of the Majesty of Law +Was far less like a hatchet than a dissipated saw. + +And ANNIE said, "O GILBERT, dear, I do not understand +Why ever you are injuring that hatchet in your hand?' +He said, "It is intended for to lacerate and flay +The neck of that unmitigated villain PETER GRAY!" + +"Now, GILBERT," ANNIE answered, "wicked headsman, just beware - +I won't have PETER tortured with that horrible affair; +If you appear with that, you may depend you'll rue the day." +But GILBERT said, "Oh, shall I?" which was just his nasty way. + +He saw a look of anger from her eyes distinctly dart, +For ANNIE was a woman, and had pity in her heart! +She wished him a good evening--he answered with a glare; +She only said, "Remember, for your ANNIE will be there!" + +* * * * * * * * + +The morrow GILBERT boldly on the scaffold took his stand, +With a vizor on his face and with a hatchet in his hand, +And all the people noticed that the Engine of the Law +Was far less like a hatchet than a dissipated saw. + +The felon very coolly loosed his collar and his stock, +And placed his wicked head upon the handy little block. +The hatchet was uplifted for to settle PETER GRAY, +When GILBERT plainly heard a woman's voice exclaiming, "Stay!" + +'Twas ANNIE, gentle ANNIE, as you'll easily believe. +"O GILBERT, you must spare him, for I bring him a reprieve, +It came from our Home Secretary many weeks ago, +And passed through that post-office which I used to keep at Bow. + +"I loved you, loved you madly, and you know it, GILBERT CLAY, +And as I'd quite surrendered all idea of PETER GRAY, +I quietly suppressed it, as you'll clearly understand, +For I thought it might be awkward if he came and claimed my hand. + +"In anger at my secret (which I could not tell before), +To lacerate poor PETER GRAY vindictively you swore; +I told you if you used that blunted axe you'd rue the day, +And so you will, young GILBERT, for I'll marry PETER GRAY!" + +[AND SO SHE DID. + + + +Ballad: AN UNFORTUNATE LIKENESS. + + + +I've painted SHAKESPEARE all my life - +"An infant" (even then at "play"!) +"A boy," with stage-ambition rife, +Then "Married to ANN HATHAWAY." + +"The bard's first ticket night" (or "ben."), +His "First appearance on the stage," +His "Call before the curtain"--then +"Rejoicings when he came of age." + +The bard play-writing in his room, +The bard a humble lawyer's clerk. +The bard a lawyer {3}--parson {4}--groom {5} - +The bard deer-stealing, after dark. + +The bard a tradesman {6}--and a Jew {7} - +The bard a botanist {8}--a beak {9} - +The bard a skilled musician {10} too - +A sheriff {11} and a surgeon {12} eke! + +Yet critics say (a friendly stock) +That, though it's evident I try, +Yet even _I_ can barely mock +The glimmer of his wondrous eye! + +One morning as a work I framed, +There passed a person, walking hard: +"My gracious goodness," I exclaimed, +"How very like my dear old bard! + +"Oh, what a model he would make!" +I rushed outside--impulsive me! - +"Forgive the liberty I take, +But you're so very"--"Stop!" said he. + +"You needn't waste your breath or time, - +I know what you are going to say, - +That you're an artist, and that I'm +Remarkably like SHAKESPEARE. Eh? + +"You wish that I would sit to you?" +I clasped him madly round the waist, +And breathlessly replied, "I do!" +"All right," said he, "but please make haste." + +I led him by his hallowed sleeve, +And worked away at him apace, +I painted him till dewy eve, - +There never was a nobler face! + +"Oh, sir," I said, "a fortune grand +Is yours, by dint of merest chance, - +To sport HIS brow at second-hand, +To wear HIS cast-off countenance! + +"To rub HIS eyes whene'er they ache - +To wear HIS baldness ere you're old - +To clean HIS teeth when you awake - +To blow HIS nose when you've a cold!" + +His eyeballs glistened in his eyes - +I sat and watched and smoked my pipe; +"Bravo!" I said, "I recognize +The phrensy of your prototype!" + +His scanty hair he wildly tore: +"That's right," said I, "it shows your breed." +He danced--he stamped--he wildly swore - +"Bless me, that's very fine indeed!" + +"Sir," said the grand Shakesperian boy +(Continuing to blaze away), +"You think my face a source of joy; +That shows you know not what you say. + +"Forgive these yells and cellar-flaps: +I'm always thrown in some such state +When on his face well-meaning chaps +This wretched man congratulate. + +"For, oh! this face--this pointed chin - +This nose--this brow--these eyeballs too, +Have always been the origin +Of all the woes I ever knew! + +"If to the play my way I find, +To see a grand Shakesperian piece, +I have no rest, no ease of mind +Until the author's puppets cease. + +"Men nudge each other--thus--and say, +'This certainly is SHAKESPEARE'S son,' +And merry wags (of course in play) +Cry 'Author!' when the piece is done. + +"In church the people stare at me, +Their soul the sermon never binds; +I catch them looking round to see, +And thoughts of SHAKESPEARE fill their minds. + +"And sculptors, fraught with cunning wile, +Who find it difficult to crown +A bust with BROWN'S insipid smile, +Or TOMKINS'S unmannered frown, + +"Yet boldly make my face their own, +When (oh, presumption!) they require +To animate a paving-stone +With SHAKESPEARE'S intellectual fire. + +"At parties where young ladies gaze, +And I attempt to speak my joy, +'Hush, pray,' some lovely creature says, +'The fond illusion don't destroy!' + +"Whene'er I speak, my soul is wrung +With these or some such whisperings: +''Tis pity that a SHAKESPEARE'S tongue +Should say such un-Shakesperian things!' + +"I should not thus be criticised +Had I a face of common wont: +Don't envy me--now, be advised!" +And, now I think of it, I don't! + + + +Ballad: THE KING OF CANOODLE-DUM. + + + +The story of FREDERICK GOWLER, +A mariner of the sea, +Who quitted his ship, the Howler, +A-sailing in Caribbee. +For many a day he wandered, +Till he met in a state of rum +CALAMITY POP VON PEPPERMINT DROP, +The King of Canoodle-Dum. + +That monarch addressed him gaily, +"Hum! Golly de do to-day? +Hum! Lily-white Buckra Sailee" - +(You notice his playful way?) - +"What dickens you doin' here, sar? +Why debbil you want to come? +Hum! Picaninnee, dere isn't no sea +In City Canoodle-Dum!" + +And GOWLER he answered sadly, +"Oh, mine is a doleful tale! +They've treated me werry badly +In Lunnon, from where I hail. +I'm one of the Family Royal - +No common Jack Tar you see; +I'm WILLIAM THE FOURTH, far up in the North, +A King in my own countree!" + +Bang-bang! How the tom-toms thundered! +Bang-bang! How they thumped this gongs! +Bang-bang! How the people wondered! +Bang-bang! At it hammer and tongs! +Alliance with Kings of Europe +Is an honour Canoodlers seek, +Her monarchs don't stop with PEPPERMINT DROP +Every day in the week! + +FRED told them that he was undone, +For his people all went insane, +And fired the Tower of London, +And Grinnidge's Naval Fane. +And some of them racked St. James's, +And vented their rage upon +The Church of St. Paul, the Fishmongers' Hall, +And the Angel at Islington. + +CALAMITY POP implored him +In his capital to remain +Till those people of his restored him +To power and rank again. +CALAMITY POP he made him +A Prince of Canoodle-Dum, +With a couple of caves, some beautiful slaves, +And the run of the royal rum. + +Pop gave him his only daughter, +HUM PICKETY WIMPLE TIP: +FRED vowed that if over the water +He went, in an English ship, +He'd make her his Queen,--though truly +It is an unusual thing +For a Caribbee brat who's as black as your hat +To be wife of an English King. + +And all the Canoodle-Dummers +They copied his rolling walk, +His method of draining rummers, +His emblematical talk. +For his dress and his graceful breeding, +His delicate taste in rum, +And his nautical way, were the talk of the day +In the Court of Canoodle-Dum. + +CALAMITY POP most wisely +Determined in everything +To model his Court precisely +On that of the English King; +And ordered that every lady +And every lady's lord +Should masticate jacky (a kind of tobaccy), +And scatter its juice abroad. + +They signified wonder roundly +At any astounding yarn, +By darning their dear eyes roundly +('T was all they had to darn). +They "hoisted their slacks," adjusting +Garments of plantain-leaves +With nautical twitches (as if they wore breeches, +Instead of a dress like EVE'S!) + +They shivered their timbers proudly, +At a phantom forelock dragged, +And called for a hornpipe loudly +Whenever amusement flagged. +"Hum! Golly! him POP resemble, +Him Britisher sov'reign, hum! +CALAMITY POP VON PEPPERMINT DROP, +De King of Canoodle-Dum!" + +The mariner's lively "Hollo!" +Enlivened Canoodle's plain +(For blessings unnumbered follow +In Civilization's train). +But Fortune, who loves a bathos, +A terrible ending planned, +For ADMIRAL D. CHICKABIDDY, C.B., +Placed foot on Canoodle land! + +That rebel, he seized KING GOWLER, +He threatened his royal brains, +And put him aboard the Howler, +And fastened him down with chains. +The Howler she weighed her anchor, +With FREDERICK nicely nailed, +And off to the North with WILLIAM THE FOURTH +These horrible pirates sailed. + +CALAMITY said (with folly), +"Hum! nebber want him again - +Him civilize all of us, golly! +CALAMITY suck him brain!" +The people, however, were pained when +They saw him aboard his ship, +But none of them wept for their FREDDY, except +HUM PICKETY WIMPLE TIP. + + + +Ballad: THE MARTINET. + + + +Some time ago, in simple verse +I sang the story true +Of CAPTAIN REECE, the Mantelpiece, +And all her happy crew. + +I showed how any captain may +Attach his men to him, +If he but heeds their smallest needs, +And studies every whim. + +Now mark how, by Draconic rule +And hauteur ill-advised, +The noblest crew upon the Blue +May be demoralized. + +When his ungrateful country placed +Kind REECE upon half-pay, +Without much claim SIR BERKELY came, +And took command one day. + +SIR BERKELY was a martinet - +A stern unyielding soul - +Who ruled his ship by dint of whip +And horrible black-hole. + +A sailor who was overcome +From having freely dined, +And chanced to reel when at the wheel, +He instantly confined! + +And tars who, when an action raged, +Appeared alarmed or scared, +And those below who wished to go, +He very seldom spared. + +E'en he who smote his officer +For punishment was booked, +And mutinies upon the seas +He rarely overlooked. + +In short, the happy Mantelpiece, +Where all had gone so well, +Beneath that fool SIR BERKELY'S rule +Became a floating hell. + +When first SIR BERKELY came aboard +He read a speech to all, +And told them how he'd made a vow +To act on duty's call. + +Then WILLIAM LEE, he up and said +(The Captain's coxswain he), +"We've heard the speech your honour's made, +And werry pleased we be. + +"We won't pretend, my lad, as how +We're glad to lose our REECE; +Urbane, polite, he suited quite +The saucy Mantelpiece. + +"But if your honour gives your mind +To study all our ways, +With dance and song we'll jog along +As in those happy days. + +"I like your honour's looks, and feel +You're worthy of your sword. +Your hand, my lad--I'm doosid glad +To welcome you aboard!" + +SIR BERKELY looked amazed, as though +He didn't understand. +"Don't shake your head," good WILLIAM said, +"It is an honest hand. + +"It's grasped a better hand than yourn - +Come, gov'nor, I insist!" +The Captain stared--the coxswain glared - +The hand became a fist! + +"Down, upstart!" said the hardy salt; +But BERKELY dodged his aim, +And made him go in chains below: +The seamen murmured "Shame!" + +He stopped all songs at 12 p.m., +Stopped hornpipes when at sea, +And swore his cot (or bunk) should not +Be used by aught than he. + +He never joined their daily mess, +Nor asked them to his own, +But chaffed in gay and social way +The officers alone. + +His First Lieutenant, PETER, was +As useless as could be, +A helpless stick, and always sick +When there was any sea. + +This First Lieutenant proved to be +His foster-sister MAY, +Who went to sea for love of he +In masculine array. + +And when he learnt the curious fact, +Did he emotion show, +Or dry her tears or end her fears +By marrying her? No! + +Or did he even try to soothe +This maiden in her teens? +Oh, no!--instead he made her wed +The Sergeant of Marines! + +Of course such Spartan discipline +Would make an angel fret; +They drew a lot, and WILLIAM shot +This fearful martinet. + +The Admiralty saw how ill +They'd treated CAPTAIN REECE; +He was restored once more aboard +The saucy Mantelpiece. + + + +Ballad: THE SAILOR BOY TO HIS LASS. + + + +I go away this blessed day, +To sail across the sea, MATILDA! +My vessel starts for various parts +At twenty after three, MATILDA. +I hardly know where we may go, +Or if it's near or far, MATILDA, +For CAPTAIN HYDE does not confide +In any 'fore-mast tar, MATILDA! + +Beneath my ban that mystic man +Shall suffer, coute qui coute, MATILDA! +What right has he to keep from me +The Admiralty route, MATILDA? +Because, forsooth! I am a youth +Of common sailors' lot, MATILDA! +Am I a man on human plan +Designed, or am I not, MATILDA? + +But there, my lass, we'll let that pass! +With anxious love I burn, MATILDA. +I want to know if we shall go +To church when I return, MATILDA? +Your eyes are red, you bow your head; +It's pretty clear you thirst, MATILDA, +To name the day--What's that you say? +- "You'll see me further first," MATILDA? + +I can't mistake the signs you make, +Although you barely speak, MATILDA; +Though pure and young, you thrust your tongue +Right in your pretty cheek, MATILDA! +My dear, I fear I hear you sneer - +I do--I'm sure I do, MATILDA! +With simple grace you make a face, +Ejaculating, "Ugh!" MATILDA. + +Oh, pause to think before you drink +The dregs of Lethe's cup, MATILDA! +Remember, do, what I've gone through, +Before you give me up, MATILDA! +Recall again the mental pain +Of what I've had to do, MATILDA! +And be assured that I've endured +It, all along of you, MATILDA! + +Do you forget, my blithesome pet, +How once with jealous rage, MATILDA, +I watched you walk and gaily talk +With some one thrice your age, MATILDA? +You squatted free upon his knee, +A sight that made me sad, MATILDA! +You pinched his cheek with friendly tweak, +Which almost drove me mad, MATILDA! + +I knew him not, but hoped to spot +Some man you thought to wed, MATILDA! +I took a gun, my darling one, +And shot him through the head, MATILDA! +I'm made of stuff that's rough and gruff +Enough, I own; but, ah, MATILDA! +It DID annoy your sailor boy +To find it was your pa, MATILDA! + +I've passed a life of toil and strife, +And disappointments deep, MATILDA; +I've lain awake with dental ache +Until I fell asleep, MATILDA! +At times again I've missed a train, +Or p'rhaps run short of tin, MATILDA, +And worn a boot on corns that shoot, +Or, shaving, cut my chin, MATILDA. + +But, oh! no trains--no dental pains - +Believe me when I say, MATILDA, +No corns that shoot--no pinching boot +Upon a summer day, MATILDA - +It's my belief, could cause such grief +As that I've suffered for, MATILDA, +My having shot in vital spot +Your old progenitor, MATILDA. + +Bethink you how I've kept the vow +I made one winter day, MATILDA - +That, come what could, I never would +Remain too long away, MATILDA. +And, oh! the crimes with which, at times, +I've charged my gentle mind, MATILDA, +To keep the vow I made--and now +You treat me so unkind, MATILDA! + +For when at sea, off Caribbee, +I felt my passion burn, MATILDA, +By passion egged, I went and begged +The captain to return, MATILDA. +And when, my pet, I couldn't get +That captain to agree, MATILDA, +Right through a sort of open port +I pitched him in the sea, MATILDA! + +Remember, too, how all the crew +With indignation blind, MATILDA, +Distinctly swore they ne'er before +Had thought me so unkind, MATILDA. +And how they'd shun me one by one - +An unforgiving group, MATILDA - +I stopped their howls and sulky scowls +By pizening their soup, MATILDA! + +So pause to think, before you drink +The dregs of Lethe's cup, MATILDA; +Remember, do, what I've gone through, +Before you give me up, MATILDA. +Recall again the mental pain +Of what I've had to do, MATILDA, +And be assured that I've endured +It, all along of you, MATILDA! + + + +Ballad: THE REVEREND SIMON MAGUS. + + + +A rich advowson, highly prized, +For private sale was advertised; +And many a parson made a bid; +The REVEREND SIMON MAGUS did. + +He sought the agent's: "Agent, I +Have come prepared at once to buy +(If your demand is not too big) +The Cure of Otium-cum-Digge." + +"Ah!" said the agent, "THERE'S a berth - +The snuggest vicarage on earth; +No sort of duty (so I hear), +And fifteen hundred pounds a year! + +"If on the price we should agree, +The living soon will vacant be; +The good incumbent's ninety five, +And cannot very long survive. + +See--here's his photograph--you see, +He's in his dotage." "Ah, dear me! +Poor soul!" said SIMON. "His decease +Would be a merciful release!" + +The agent laughed--the agent blinked - +The agent blew his nose and winked - +And poked the parson's ribs in play - +It was that agent's vulgar way. + +The REVEREND SIMON frowned: "I grieve +This light demeanour to perceive; +It's scarcely comme il faut, I think: +Now--pray oblige me--do not wink. + +"Don't dig my waistcoat into holes - +Your mission is to sell the souls +Of human sheep and human kids +To that divine who highest bids. + +"Do well in this, and on your head +Unnumbered honours will be shed." +The agent said, "Well, truth to tell, +I HAVE been doing very well." + +"You should," said SIMON, "at your age; +But now about the parsonage. +How many rooms does it contain? +Show me the photograph again. + +"A poor apostle's humble house +Must not be too luxurious; +No stately halls with oaken floor - +It should be decent and no more. + +" No billiard-rooms--no stately trees - +No croquet-grounds or pineries." +"Ah!" sighed the agent, "very true: +This property won't do for you." + +"All these about the house you'll find." - +"Well," said the parson, "never mind; +I'll manage to submit to these +Luxurious superfluities. + +"A clergyman who does not shirk +The various calls of Christian work, +Will have no leisure to employ +These 'common forms' of worldly joy. + +"To preach three times on Sabbath days - +To wean the lost from wicked ways - +The sick to soothe--the sane to wed - +The poor to feed with meat and bread; + + "These are the various wholesome ways +In which I'll spend my nights and days: +My zeal will have no time to cool +At croquet, archery, or pool." + +The agent said, "From what I hear, +This living will not suit, I fear - +There are no poor, no sick at all; +For services there is no call." + +The reverend gent looked grave, "Dear me! +Then there is NO 'society'? - +I mean, of course, no sinners there +Whose souls will be my special care?" + +The cunning agent shook his head, +"No, none--except"--(the agent said) - +"The DUKE OF A., the EARL OF B., +The MARQUIS C., and VISCOUNT D. + +"But you will not be quite alone, +For though they've chaplains of their own, +Of course this noble well-bred clan +Receive the parish clergyman." + +"Oh, silence, sir!" said SIMON M., +"Dukes--Earls! What should I care for them? +These worldly ranks I scorn and flout!" +"Of course," the agent said, "no doubt!" + +"Yet I might show these men of birth +The hollowness of rank on earth." +The agent answered, "Very true - +But I should not, if I were you." + +"Who sells this rich advowson, pray?" +The agent winked--it was his way - +"His name is HART; 'twixt me and you, +He is, I'm grieved to say, a Jew!" + +"A Jew?" said SIMON, "happy find! +I purchase this advowson, mind. +My life shall be devoted to +Converting that unhappy Jew!" + + + +Ballad: MY DREAM. + + + +The other night, from cares exempt, +I slept--and what d'you think I dreamt? +I dreamt that somehow I had come +To dwell in Topsy-Turveydom - + +Where vice is virtue--virtue, vice: +Where nice is nasty--nasty, nice: +Where right is wrong and wrong is right - +Where white is black and black is white. + +Where babies, much to their surprise, +Are born astonishingly wise; +With every Science on their lips, +And Art at all their finger-tips. + +For, as their nurses dandle them +They crow binomial theorem, +With views (it seems absurd to us) +On differential calculus. + +But though a babe, as I have said, +Is born with learning in his head, +He must forget it, if he can, +Before he calls himself a man. + +For that which we call folly here, +Is wisdom in that favoured sphere; +The wisdom we so highly prize +Is blatant folly in their eyes. + +A boy, if he would push his way, +Must learn some nonsense every day; +And cut, to carry out this view, +His wisdom teeth and wisdom too. + +Historians burn their midnight oils, +Intent on giant-killers' toils; +And sages close their aged eyes +To other sages' lullabies. + +Our magistrates, in duty bound, +Commit all robbers who are found; +But there the Beaks (so people said) +Commit all robberies instead. + +Our Judges, pure and wise in tone, +Know crime from theory alone, +And glean the motives of a thief +From books and popular belief. + +But there, a Judge who wants to prime +His mind with true ideas of crime, +Derives them from the common sense +Of practical experience. + +Policemen march all folks away +Who practise virtue every day - +Of course, I mean to say, you know, +What we call virtue here below. + +For only scoundrels dare to do +What we consider just and true, +And only good men do, in fact, +What we should think a dirty act. + +But strangest of these social twirls, +The girls are boys--the boys are girls! +The men are women, too--but then, +Per contra, women all are men. + +To one who to tradition clings +This seems an awkward state of things, +But if to think it out you try, +It doesn't really signify. + +With them, as surely as can be, +A sailor should be sick at sea, +And not a passenger may sail +Who cannot smoke right through a gale. + +A soldier (save by rarest luck) +Is always shot for showing pluck +(That is, if others can be found +With pluck enough to fire a round). + +"How strange!" I said to one I saw; +"You quite upset our every law. +However can you get along +So systematically wrong?" + +"Dear me!" my mad informant said, +"Have you no eyes within your head? +You sneer when you your hat should doff: +Why, we begin where you leave off! + +"Your wisest men are very far +Less learned than our babies are!" +I mused awhile--and then, oh me! +I framed this brilliant repartee: + +"Although your babes are wiser far +Than our most valued sages are, +Your sages, with their toys and cots, +Are duller than our idiots!" + +But this remark, I grieve to state, +Came just a little bit too late +For as I framed it in my head, +I woke and found myself in bed. + +Still I could wish that, 'stead of here, +My lot were in that favoured sphere! - +Where greatest fools bear off the bell +I ought to do extremely well. + + + +Ballad: THE BISHOP OF RUM-TI-FOO AGAIN. + + + +I often wonder whether you +Think sometimes of that Bishop, who +From black but balmy Rum-ti-Foo +Last summer twelvemonth came. +Unto your mind I p'r'aps may bring +Remembrance of the man I sing +To-day, by simply mentioning +That PETER was his name. + +Remember how that holy man +Came with the great Colonial clan +To Synod, called Pan-Anglican; +And kindly recollect +How, having crossed the ocean wide, +To please his flock all means he tried +Consistent with a proper pride +And manly self-respect. + +He only, of the reverend pack +Who minister to Christians black, +Brought any useful knowledge back +To his Colonial fold. +In consequence a place I claim +For "PETER" on the scroll of Fame +(For PETER was that Bishop's name, +As I've already told). + +He carried Art, he often said, +To places where that timid maid +(Save by Colonial Bishops' aid) +Could never hope to roam. +The Payne-cum-Lauri feat he taught +As he had learnt it; for he thought +The choicest fruits of Progress ought +To bless the Negro's home. + +And he had other work to do, +For, while he tossed upon the Blue, +The islanders of Rum-ti-Foo +Forgot their kindly friend. +Their decent clothes they learnt to tear - +They learnt to say, "I do not care," +Though they, of course, were well aware +How folks, who say so, end. + +Some sailors, whom he did not know, +Had landed there not long ago, +And taught them "Bother!" also, "Blow!" +(Of wickedness the germs). +No need to use a casuist's pen +To prove that they were merchantmen; +No sailor of the Royal N. +Would use such awful terms. + +And so, when BISHOP PETER came +(That was the kindly Bishop's name), +He heard these dreadful oaths with shame, +And chid their want of dress. +(Except a shell--a bangle rare - +A feather here--a feather there +The South Pacific Negroes wear +Their native nothingness.) + +He taught them that a Bishop loathes +To listen to disgraceful oaths, +He gave them all his left-off clothes - +They bent them to his will. +The Bishop's gift spreads quickly round; +In PETER'S left-off clothes they bound +(His three-and-twenty suits they found +In fair condition still). + +The Bishop's eyes with water fill, +Quite overjoyed to find them still +Obedient to his sovereign will, +And said, "Good Rum-ti-Foo! +Half-way I'll meet you, I declare: +I'll dress myself in cowries rare, +And fasten feathers in my hair, +And dance the 'Cutch-chi-boo!'" {13} + +And to conciliate his See +He married PICCADILLILLEE, +The youngest of his twenty-three, +Tall--neither fat nor thin. +(And though the dress he made her don +Looks awkwardly a girl upon, +It was a great improvement on +The one he found her in.) + +The Bishop in his gay canoe +(His wife, of course, went with him too) +To some adjacent island flew, +To spend his honeymoon. +Some day in sunny Rum-ti-Foo +A little PETER'll be on view; +And that (if people tell me true) +Is like to happen soon. + + + +Ballad: THE HAUGHTY ACTOR. + + + +AN actor--GIBBS, of Drury Lane - +Of very decent station, +Once happened in a part to gain +Excessive approbation: +It sometimes turns a fellow's brain +And makes him singularly vain +When he believes that he receives +Tremendous approbation. + +His great success half drove him mad, +But no one seemed to mind him; +Well, in another piece he had +Another part assigned him. +This part was smaller, by a bit, +Than that in which he made a hit. +So, much ill-used, he straight refused +To play the part assigned him. + +* * * * * * * * + +THAT NIGHT THAT ACTOR SLEPT, AND I'LL ATTEMPT +TO TELL YOU OF THE VIVID DREAM HE DREAMT. + + +THE DREAM. + + +In fighting with a robber band +(A thing he loved sincerely) +A sword struck GIBBS upon the hand, +And wounded it severely. +At first he didn't heed it much, +He thought it was a simple touch, +But soon he found the weapon's bound +Had wounded him severely. + +To Surgeon COBB he made a trip, +Who'd just effected featly +An amputation at the hip +Particularly neatly. +A rising man was Surgeon COBB +But this extremely ticklish job +He had achieved (as he believed) +Particularly neatly. + +The actor rang the surgeon's bell. +"Observe my wounded finger, +Be good enough to strap it well, +And prithee do not linger. +That I, dear sir, may fill again +The Theatre Royal Drury Lane: +This very night I have to fight - +So prithee do not linger." + +"I don't strap fingers up for doles," +Replied the haughty surgeon; +"To use your cant, I don't play roles +Utility that verge on. +First amputation--nothing less - +That is my line of business: +We surgeon nobs despise all jobs +Utility that verge on + +"When in your hip there lurks disease" +(So dreamt this lively dreamer), +"Or devastating caries +In humerus or femur, +If you can pay a handsome fee, +Oh, then you may remember me - +With joy elate I'll amputate +Your humerus or femur." + +The disconcerted actor ceased +The haughty leech to pester, +But when the wound in size increased, +And then began to fester, +He sought a learned Counsel's lair, +And told that Counsel, then and there, +How COBB'S neglect of his defect +Had made his finger fester. + +"Oh, bring my action, if you please, +The case I pray you urge on, +And win me thumping damages +From COBB, that haughty surgeon. +He culpably neglected me +Although I proffered him his fee, +So pray come down, in wig and gown, +On COBB, that haughty surgeon!" + +That Counsel learned in the laws, +With passion almost trembled. +He just had gained a mighty cause +Before the Peers assembled! +Said he, "How dare you have the face +To come with Common Jury case +To one who wings rhetoric flings +Before the Peers assembled?" + +Dispirited became our friend - +Depressed his moral pecker - +"But stay! a thought!--I'll gain my end, +And save my poor exchequer. +I won't be placed upon the shelf, +I'll take it into Court myself, +And legal lore display before +The Court of the Exchequer." + +He found a Baron--one of those +Who with our laws supply us - +In wig and silken gown and hose, +As if at Nisi Prius. +But he'd just given, off the reel, +A famous judgment on Appeal: +It scarce became his heightened fame +To sit at Nisi Prius. + +Our friend began, with easy wit, +That half concealed his terror: +"Pooh!" said the Judge, "I only sit +In Banco or in Error. +Can you suppose, my man, that I'd +O'er Nisi Prius Courts preside, +Or condescend my time to spend +On anything but Error?" + +"Too bad," said GIBBS, "my case to shirk! +You must be bad innately, +To save your skill for mighty work +Because it's valued greatly!" +But here he woke, with sudden start. + +* * * * * * * * + +He wrote to say he'd play the part. +I've but to tell he played it well - +The author's words--his native wit +Combined, achieved a perfect "hit" - +The papers praised him greatly. + + + +Ballad: THE TWO MAJORS. + + + +An excellent soldier who's worthy the name +Loves officers dashing and strict: +When good, he's content with escaping all blame, +When naughty, he likes to be licked. + +He likes for a fault to be bullied and stormed, +Or imprisoned for several days, +And hates, for a duty correctly performed, +To be slavered with sickening praise. + +No officer sickened with praises his corps +So little as MAJOR LA GUERRE - +No officer swore at his warriors more +Than MAJOR MAKREDI PREPERE. + +Their soldiers adored them, and every grade +Delighted to hear their abuse; +Though whenever these officers came on parade +They shivered and shook in their shoes. + +For, oh! if LA GUERRE could all praises withhold, +Why, so could MAKREDI PREPERE, +And, oh! if MAKREDI could bluster and scold, +Why, so could the mighty LA GUERRE. + +"No doubt we deserve it--no mercy we crave - +Go on--you're conferring a boon; +We would rather be slanged by a warrior brave, +Than praised by a wretched poltroon!" + +MAKREDI would say that in battle's fierce rage +True happiness only was met: +Poor MAJOR MAKREDI, though fifty his age, +Had never known happiness yet! + +LA GUERRE would declare, "With the blood of a foe +No tipple is worthy to clink." +Poor fellow! he hadn't, though sixty or so, +Yet tasted his favourite drink! + +They agreed at their mess--they agreed in the glass - +They agreed in the choice of their "set," +And they also agreed in adoring, alas! +The Vivandiere, pretty FILLETTE. + +Agreement, you see, may be carried too far, +And after agreeing all round +For years--in this soldierly "maid of the bar," +A bone of contention they found! + +It may seem improper to call such a pet - +By a metaphor, even--a bone; +But though they agreed in adoring her, yet +Each wanted to make her his own. + +"On the day that you marry her," muttered PREPERE +(With a pistol he quietly played), +"I'll scatter the brains in your noddle, I swear, +All over the stony parade!" + +"I cannot do THAT to you," answered LA GUERRE, +"Whatever events may befall; +But this I CAN do--IF YOU wed her, mon cher! +I'll eat you, moustachios and all!" + +The rivals, although they would never engage, +Yet quarrelled whenever they met; +They met in a fury and left in a rage, +But neither took pretty FILLETTE. + +"I am not afraid," thought MAKREDI PREPERE: +"For country I'm ready to fall; +But nobody wants, for a mere Vivandiere, +To be eaten, moustachios and all! + +"Besides, though LA GUERRE has his faults, I'll allow +He's one of the bravest of men: +My goodness! if I disagree with him now, +I might disagree with him then." + +"No coward am I," said LA GUERRE, "as you guess - +I sneer at an enemy's blade; +But I don't want PREPERE to get into a mess +For splashing the stony parade!" + +One day on parade to PREPERE and LA GUERRE +Came CORPORAL JACOT DEBETTE, +And trembling all over, he prayed of them there +To give him the pretty FILLETTE. + +"You see, I am willing to marry my bride +Until you've arranged this affair; +I will blow out my brains when your honours decide +Which marries the sweet Vivandiere!" + +"Well, take her,' said both of them in a duet +(A favourite form of reply), +"But when I am ready to marry FILLETTE. +Remember you've promised to die!" + +He married her then: from the flowery plains +Of existence the roses they cull: +He lived and he died with his wife; and his brains +Are reposing in peace in his skull. + + + +Ballad: EMILY, JOHN, JAMES, AND I. A DERBY LEGEND. + + + +EMILY JANE was a nursery maid, +JAMES was a bold Life Guard, +JOHN was a constable, poorly paid +(And I am a doggerel bard). + +A very good girl was EMILY JANE, +JIMMY was good and true, +JOHN was a very good man in the main +(And I am a good man too). + +Rivals for EMMIE were JOHNNY and JAMES, +Though EMILY liked them both; +She couldn't tell which had the strongest claims +(And _I_ couldn't take my oath). + +But sooner or later you're certain to find +Your sentiments can't lie hid - +JANE thought it was time that she made up her mind +(And I think it was time she did). + +Said JANE, with a smirk, and a blush on her face, +"I'll promise to wed the boy +Who takes me to-morrow to Epsom Race!" +(Which I would have done, with joy). + +From JOHNNY escaped an expression of pain, +But Jimmy said, "Done with you! +I'll take you with pleasure, my EMILY JANE!" +(And I would have said so too). + +JOHN lay on the ground, and he roared like mad +(For JOHNNY was sore perplexed), +And he kicked very hard at a very small lad +(Which _I_ often do, when vexed). + +For JOHN was on duty next day with the Force, +To punish all Epsom crimes; +Young people WILL cross when they're clearing the course +(I do it myself, sometimes). + +* * * * * * * * + +The Derby Day sun glittered gaily on cads, +On maidens with gamboge hair, +On sharpers and pickpockets, swindlers and pads, +(For I, with my harp, was there). + +And JIMMY went down with his JANE that day, +And JOHN by the collar or nape +Seized everybody who came in his way +(And _I_ had a narrow escape). + +He noticed his EMILY JANE with JIM, +And envied the well-made elf; +And people remarked that he muttered "Oh, dim!" +(I often say "dim!" myself). + +JOHN dogged them all day, without asking their leaves; +For his sergeant he told, aside, +That JIMMY and JANE were notorious thieves +(And I think he was justified). + +But JAMES wouldn't dream of abstracting a fork, +And JENNY would blush with shame +At stealing so much as a bottle or cork +(A bottle I think fair game). + +But, ah! there's another more serious crime! +They wickedly strayed upon +The course, at a critical moment of time +(I pointed them out to JOHN). + +The constable fell on the pair in a crack - +And then, with a demon smile, +Let JENNY cross over, but sent JIMMY back +(I played on my harp the while). + +Stern JOHNNY their agony loud derides +With a very triumphant sneer - +They weep and they wail from the opposite sides +(And _I_ shed a silent tear). + +And JENNY is crying away like mad, +And JIMMY is swearing hard; +And JOHNNY is looking uncommonly glad +(And I am a doggerel bard). + +But JIMMY he ventured on crossing again +The scenes of our Isthmian Games - +JOHN caught him, and collared him, giving him pain +(I felt very much for JAMES). + +JOHN led him away with a victor's hand, +And JIMMY was shortly seen +In the station-house under the grand Grand Stand +(As many a time I'VE been). + +And JIMMY, bad boy, was imprisoned for life, +Though EMILY pleaded hard; +And JOHNNY had EMILY JANE to wife +(And I am a doggerel bard). + + + +Ballad: THE PERILS OF INVISIBILITY. + + + +Old PETER led a wretched life - +Old PETER had a furious wife; +Old PETER too was truly stout, +He measured several yards about. + +The little fairy PICKLEKIN +One summer afternoon looked in, +And said, "Old PETER, how de do? +Can I do anything for you? + +"I have three gifts--the first will give +Unbounded riches while you live; +The second health where'er you be; +The third, invisibility." + +"O little fairy PICKLEKIN," +Old PETER answered with a grin, +"To hesitate would be absurd, - +Undoubtedly I choose the third." + +"'Tis yours," the fairy said; "be quite +Invisible to mortal sight +Whene'er you please. Remember me +Most kindly, pray, to MRS. P." + +Old MRS. PETER overheard +Wee PICKLEKIN'S concluding word, +And, jealous of her girlhood's choice, +Said, "That was some young woman's voice: + +Old PETER let her scold and swear - +Old PETER, bless him, didn't care. +"My dear, your rage is wasted quite - +Observe, I disappear from sight!" + +A well-bred fairy (so I've heard) +Is always faithful to her word: +Old PETER vanished like a shot, +Put then--HIS SUIT OF CLOTHES DID NOT! + +For when conferred the fairy slim +Invisibility on HIM, +She popped away on fairy wings, +Without referring to his "things." + +So there remained a coat of blue, +A vest and double eyeglass too, +His tail, his shoes, his socks as well, +His pair of--no, I must not tell. + +Old MRS. PETER soon began +To see the failure of his plan, +And then resolved (I quote the Bard) +To "hoist him with his own petard." + +Old PETER woke next day and dressed, +Put on his coat, and shoes, and vest, +His shirt and stock; BUT COULD NOT FIND +HIS ONLY PAIR OF--never mind! + +Old PETER was a decent man, +And though he twigged his lady's plan, +Yet, hearing her approaching, he +Resumed invisibility. + +"Dear MRS. P., my only joy," +Exclaimed the horrified old boy, +"Now, give them up, I beg of you - +You know what I'm referring to!" + +But no; the cross old lady swore +She'd keep his--what I said before - +To make him publicly absurd; +And MRS. PETER kept her word. + +The poor old fellow had no rest; +His coat, his stick, his shoes, his vest, +Were all that now met mortal eye - +The rest, invisibility! + +"Now, madam, give them up, I beg - +I've had rheumatics in my leg; +Besides, until you do, it's plain +I cannot come to sight again! + +"For though some mirth it might afford +To see my clothes without their lord, +Yet there would rise indignant oaths +If he were seen without his clothes!" + +But no; resolved to have her quiz, +The lady held her own--and his - +And PETER left his humble cot +To find a pair of--you know what. + +But--here's the worst of the affair - +Whene'er he came across a pair +Already placed for him to don, +He was too stout to get them on! + +So he resolved at once to train, +And walked and walked with all his main; +For years he paced this mortal earth, +To bring himself to decent girth. + +At night, when all around is still, +You'll find him pounding up a hill; +And shrieking peasants whom he meets, +Fall down in terror on the peats! + +Old PETER walks through wind and rain, +Resolved to train, and train, and train, +Until he weighs twelve stone' or so - +And when he does, I'll let you know. + + + +Ballad: THE MYSTIC SELVAGEE. + + + +Perhaps already you may know +SIR BLENNERHASSET PORTICO? +A Captain in the Navy, he - +A Baronet and K.C.B. +You do? I thought so! +It was that Captain's favourite whim +(A notion not confined to him) +That RODNEY was the greatest tar +Who ever wielded capstan-bar. +He had been taught so. + +"BENBOW! CORNWALLIS! HOOD!--Belay! +Compared with RODNEY"--he would say - +"No other tar is worth a rap! +The great LORD RODNEY was the chap +The French to polish! + "Though, mind you, I respect LORD HOOD; +CORNWALLIS, too, was rather good; +BENBOW could enemies repel, +LORD NELSON, too, was pretty well - +That is, tol-lol-ish!" + +SIR BLENNERHASSET spent his days +In learning RODNEY'S little ways, +And closely imitated, too, +His mode of talking to his crew - +His port and paces. +An ancient tar he tried to catch +Who'd served in RODNEY'S famous batch; +But since his time long years have fled, +And RODNEY'S tars are mostly dead: +Eheu fugaces! + +But after searching near and far, +At last he found an ancient tar +Who served with RODNEY and his crew +Against the French in 'Eighty-two, +(That gained the peerage). +He gave him fifty pounds a year, +His rum, his baccy, and his beer; +And had a comfortable den +Rigged up in what, by merchantmen, +Is called the steerage. + +"Now, JASPER"--'t was that sailor's name - +"Don't fear that you'll incur my blame +By saying, when it seems to you, +That there is anything I do +That RODNEY wouldn't." +The ancient sailor turned his quid, +Prepared to do as he was bid: +"Ay, ay, yer honour; to begin, +You've done away with 'swifting in' - +Well, sir, you shouldn't! + +"Upon your spars I see you've clapped +Peak halliard blocks, all iron-capped. +I would not christen that a crime, +But 'twas not done in RODNEY'S time. +It looks half-witted! +Upon your maintop-stay, I see, +You always clap a selvagee! +Your stays, I see, are equalized - +No vessel, such as RODNEY prized, +Would thus be fitted! + +"And RODNEY, honoured sir, would grin +To see you turning deadeyes in, +Not UP, as in the ancient way, +But downwards, like a cutter's stay - +You didn't oughter; +Besides, in seizing shrouds on board, +Breast backstays you have quite ignored; +Great RODNEY kept unto the last +Breast backstays on topgallant mast - +They make it tauter." + +SIR BLENNERHASSET "swifted in," +Turned deadeyes up, and lent a fin +To strip (as told by JASPER KNOX) +The iron capping from his blocks, +Where there was any. +SIR BLENNERHASSET does away, +With selvagees from maintop-stay; +And though it makes his sailors stare, +He rigs breast backstays everywhere - +In fact, too many. + +One morning, when the saucy craft +Lay calmed, old JASPER toddled aft. +"My mind misgives me, sir, that we +Were wrong about that selvagee - +I should restore it." +"Good," said the Captain, and that day +Restored it to the maintop-stay. +Well-practised sailors often make +A much more serious mistake, +And then ignore it. + +Next day old JASPER came once more: +"I think, sir, I was right before." +Well, up the mast the sailors skipped, +The selvagee was soon unshipped, +And all were merry. +Again a day, and JASPER came: +"I p'r'aps deserve your honour's blame, +I can't make up my mind," said he, +"About that cursed selvagee - +It's foolish--very. + +"On Monday night I could have sworn +That maintop-stay it should adorn, +On Tuesday morning I could swear +That selvagee should not be there. +The knot's a rasper!" +"Oh, you be hanged," said CAPTAIN P., +"Here, go ashore at Caribbee. +Get out--good bye--shove off--all right!" +Old JASPER soon was out of sight - +Farewell, old JASPER! + + + +Ballad: PHRENOLOGY. + + + +"Come, collar this bad man - +Around the throat he knotted me +Till I to choke began - +In point of fact, garotted me!" + +So spake SIR HERBERT WRITE +To JAMES, Policeman Thirty-two - +All ruffled with his fight +SIR HERBERT was, and dirty too. + +Policeman nothing said +(Though he had much to say on it), +But from the bad man's head +He took the cap that lay on it. + +"No, great SIR HERBERT WHITE - +Impossible to take him up. +This man is honest quite - +Wherever did you rake him up? + +"For Burglars, Thieves, and Co., +Indeed, I'm no apologist, +But I, some years ago, +Assisted a Phrenologist. + +"Observe his various bumps, +His head as I uncover it: +His morals lie in lumps +All round about and over it." + +"Now take him," said SIR WHITE, +"Or you will soon be rueing it; +Bless me! I must be right, - +I caught the fellow doing it!" + +Policeman calmly smiled, +"Indeed you are mistaken, sir, +You're agitated--riled - +And very badly shaken, sir. + +"Sit down, and I'll explain +My system of Phrenology, +A second, please, remain" - +(A second is horology). + +Policeman left his beat - +(The Bart., no longer furious, +Sat down upon a seat, +Observing, "This is curious!") + +"Oh, surely, here are signs +Should soften your rigidity: +This gentleman combines +Politeness with timidity. + +"Of Shyness here's a lump - +A hole for Animosity - +And like my fist his bump +Of Impecuniosity. + +"Just here the bump appears +Of Innocent Hilarity, +And just behind his ears +Are Faith, and Hope, and Charity. + +He of true Christian ways +As bright example sent us is - +This maxim he obeys, +'Sorte tua contentus sis.' + +"There, let him go his ways, +He needs no stern admonishing." +The Bart., in blank amaze, +Exclaimed, "This is astonishing! + +"I MUST have made a mull, +This matter I've been blind in it: +Examine, please, MY skull, +And tell me what you find in it." + +That Crusher looked, and said, +With unimpaired urbanity, +"SIR HERBERT, you've a head +That teems with inhumanity. + +"Here's Murder, Envy, Strife +(Propensity to kill any), +And Lies as large as life, +And heaps of Social Villany. + +"Here's Love of Bran-New Clothes, +Embezzling--Arson--Deism - +A taste for Slang and Oaths, +And Fraudulent Trusteeism. + +"Here's Love of Groundless Charge - +Here's Malice, too, and Trickery, +Unusually large +Your bump of Pocket-Pickery--" + +"Stop!" said the Bart., "my cup +Is full--I'm worse than him in all; +Policeman, take me up - +No doubt I am some criminal!" + +That Pleeceman's scorn grew large +(Phrenology had nettled it), +He took that Bart. in charge - +I don't know how they settled it. + + + +Ballad: THE FAIRY CURATE. + + + +Once a fairy +Light and airy +Married with a mortal; +Men, however, +Never, never +Pass the fairy portal. +Slyly stealing, +She to Ealing +Made a daily journey; +There she found him, +Clients round him +(He was an attorney). + +Long they tarried, +Then they married. +When the ceremony +Once was ended, +Off they wended +On their moon of honey. +Twelvemonth, maybe, +Saw a baby +(Friends performed an orgie). +Much they prized him, +And baptized him +By the name of GEORGIE, + +GEORGIE grew up; +Then he flew up +To his fairy mother. +Happy meeting - +Pleasant greeting - +Kissing one another. +"Choose a calling +Most enthralling, +I sincerely urge ye." +"Mother," said he +(Rev'rence made he), +"I would join the clergy. + +"Give permission +In addition - +Pa will let me do it: +There's a living +In his giving - +He'll appoint me to it. +Dreams of coff'ring, +Easter off'ring, +Tithe and rent and pew-rate, +So inflame me +(Do not blame me), +That I'll be a curate." + +She, with pleasure, +Said, "My treasure, +'T is my wish precisely. +Do your duty, +There's a beauty; +You have chosen wisely. +Tell your father +I would rather +As a churchman rank you. +You, in clover, +I'll watch over." +GEORGIE said, "Oh, thank you!" + +GEORGIE scudded, +Went and studied, +Made all preparations, +And with credit +(Though he said it) +Passed examinations. +(Do not quarrel +With him, moral, +Scrupulous digestions - +'Twas his mother, +And no other, +Answered all the questions.) + +Time proceeded; +Little needed +GEORGIE admonition: +He, elated, +Vindicated +Clergyman's position. +People round him +Always found him +Plain and unpretending; +Kindly teaching, +Plainly preaching, +All his money lending. + +So the fairy, +Wise and wary, +Felt no sorrow rising - +No occasion +For persuasion, +Warning, or advising. +He, resuming +Fairy pluming +(That's not English, is it?) +Oft would fly up, +To the sky up, +Pay mamma a visit. + +* * * * * * * * + +Time progressing, +GEORGIE'S blessing +Grew more Ritualistic - +Popish scandals, +Tonsures--sandals - +Genuflections mystic; +Gushing meetings - +Bosom-beatings - +Heavenly ecstatics - +Broidered spencers - +Copes and censers - +Rochets and dalmatics. + +This quandary +Vexed the fairy - +Flew she down to Ealing. +"GEORGIE, stop it! +Pray you, drop it; +Hark to my appealing: +To this foolish +Papal rule-ish +Twaddle put an ending; +This a swerve is +From our Service +Plain and unpretending." + +He, replying, +Answered, sighing, +Hawing, hemming, humming, +"It's a pity - +They're so pritty; +Yet in mode becoming, +Mother tender, +I'll surrender - +I'll be unaffected--" +But his Bishop +Into HIS shop +Entered unexpected! + +"Who is this, sir, - +Ballet miss, sir?" +Said the Bishop coldly. +"'T is my mother, +And no other," +GEORGIE answered boldly. +"Go along, sir! +You are wrong, sir; +You have years in plenty, +While this hussy +(Gracious mussy!) +Isn't two and twenty!" + +(Fairies clever +Never, never +Grow in visage older; +And the fairy, +All unwary, +Leant upon his shoulder!) +Bishop grieved him, +Disbelieved him; +GEORGE the point grew warm on; +Changed religion, +Like a pigeon, {14} +And became a Mormon! + + + +Ballad: THE WAY OF WOOING. + + + +A maiden sat at her window wide, +Pretty enough for a Prince's bride, +Yet nobody came to claim her. +She sat like a beautiful picture there, +With pretty bluebells and roses fair, +And jasmine-leaves to frame her. +And why she sat there nobody knows; +But this she sang as she plucked a rose, +The leaves around her strewing: +"I've time to lose and power to choose; +'T is not so much the gallant who woos, +But the gallant's WAY of wooing!" + +A lover came riding by awhile, +A wealthy lover was he, whose smile +Some maids would value greatly - +A formal lover, who bowed and bent, +With many a high-flown compliment, +And cold demeanour stately, +"You've still," said she to her suitor stern, +"The 'prentice-work of your craft to learn, +If thus you come a-cooing. +I've time to lose and power to choose; +'T is not so much the gallant who woos, +As the gallant's WAY of wooing!" + +A second lover came ambling by - +A timid lad with a frightened eye +And a colour mantling highly. +He muttered the errand on which he'd come, +Then only chuckled and bit his thumb, +And simpered, simpered shyly. +"No," said the maiden, "go your way; +You dare but think what a man would say, +Yet dare to come a-suing! +I've time to lose and power to choose; +'T is not so much the gallant who woos, +As the gallant's WAY of wooing!" + +A third rode up at a startling pace - +A suitor poor, with a homely face - +No doubts appeared to bind him. +He kissed her lips and he pressed her waist, +And off he rode with the maiden, placed +On a pillion safe behind him. +And she heard the suitor bold confide +This golden hint to the priest who tied +The knot there's no undoing; +With pretty young maidens who can choose, +'T is not so much the gallant who woos, +As the gallant's WAY of wooing!" + + + +Ballad: HONGREE AND MAHRY. A RECOLLECTION OF A SURREY MELODRAMA. + + + +The sun was setting in its wonted west, +When HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores, +Met MAHRY DAUBIGNY, the Village Rose, +Under the Wizard's Oak--old trysting-place +Of those who loved in rosy Aquitaine. + +They thought themselves unwatched, but they were not; +For HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores, +Found in LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JOOLES DUBOSC +A rival, envious and unscrupulous, +Who thought it not foul scorn to dodge his steps, +And listen, unperceived, to all that passed +Between the simple little Village Rose +And HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores. + +A clumsy barrack-bully was DUBOSC, +Quite unfamiliar with the well-bred tact +That animates a proper gentleman +In dealing with a girl of humble rank. +You'll understand his coarseness when I say +He would have married MAHRY DAUBIGNY, +And dragged the unsophisticated girl +Into the whirl of fashionable life, +For which her singularly rustic ways, +Her breeding (moral, but extremely rude), +Her language (chaste, but ungrammatical), +Would absolutely have unfitted her. +How different to this unreflecting boor +Was HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores. + +Contemporary with the incident +Related in our opening paragraph, +Was that sad war 'twixt Gallia and ourselves +That followed on the treaty signed at Troyes; +And so LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JOOLES DUBOSC +(Brave soldier, he, with all his faults of style) +And HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores, +Were sent by CHARLES of France against the lines +Of our Sixth HENRY (Fourteen twenty-nine), +To drive his legions out of Aquitaine. + +When HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores, +Returned, suspecting nothing, to his camp, +After his meeting with the Village Rose, +He found inside his barrack letter-box +A note from the commanding officer, +Requiring his attendance at head-quarters. +He went, and found LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JOOLES. + +"Young HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores, +This night we shall attack the English camp: +Be the 'forlorn hope' yours--you'll lead it, sir, +And lead it too with credit, I've no doubt. +As every man must certainly be killed +(For you are twenty 'gainst two thousand men), +It is not likely that you will return. +But what of that? you'll have the benefit +Of knowing that you die a soldier's death." + +Obedience was young HONGREE'S strongest point, +But he imagined that he only owed +Allegiance to his MAHRY and his King. +"If MAHRY bade me lead these fated men, +I'd lead them--but I do not think she would. +If CHARLES, my King, said, 'Go, my son, and die,' +I'd go, of course--my duty would be clear. +But MAHRY is in bed asleep, I hope, +And CHARLES, my King, a hundred leagues from this. +As for LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JOOLES DUBOSC, +How know I that our monarch would approve +The order he has given me to-night? +My King I've sworn in all things to obey - +I'll only take my orders from my King!" +Thus HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores, +Interpreted the terms of his commission. + +And HONGREE, who was wise as he was good, +Disguised himself that night in ample cloak, +Round flapping hat, and vizor mask of black, +And made, unnoticed, for the English camp. +He passed the unsuspecting sentinels +(Who little thought a man in this disguise +Could be a proper object of suspicion), +And ere the curfew bell had boomed "lights out," +He found in audience Bedford's haughty Duke. + +"Your Grace," he said, "start not--be not alarmed, +Although a Frenchman stands before your eyes. +I'm HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores. +My Colonel will attack your camp to-night, +And orders me to lead the hope forlorn. +Now I am sure our excellent KING CHARLES +Would not approve of this; but he's away +A hundred leagues, and rather more than that. +So, utterly devoted to my King, +Blinded by my attachment to the throne, +And having but its interest at heart, +I feel it is my duty to disclose +All schemes that emanate from COLONEL JOOLES, +If I believe that they are not the kind +Of schemes that our good monarch would approve." + +"But how," said Bedford's Duke, "do you propose +That we should overthrow your Colonel's scheme?" +And HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores, +Replied at once with never-failing tact: +"Oh, sir, I know this cursed country well. +Entrust yourself and all your host to me; +I'll lead you safely by a secret path +Into the heart of COLONEL JOOLES' array, +And you can then attack them unprepared, +And slay my fellow-countrymen unarmed." + +The thing was done. The DUKE of BEDFORD gave +The order, and two thousand fighting men +Crept silently into the Gallic camp, +And slew the Frenchmen as they lay asleep; +And Bedford's haughty Duke slew COLONEL JOOLES, +And gave fair MAHRY, pride of Aquitaine, +To HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores. + + + +Ballad: ETIQUETTE. {15} + + + +The Ballyshannon foundered off the coast of Cariboo, +And down in fathoms many went the captain and the crew; +Down went the owners--greedy men whom hope of gain allured: +Oh, dry the starting tear, for they were heavily insured. + +Besides the captain and the mate, the owners and the crew, +The passengers were also drowned excepting only two: +Young PETER GRAY, who tasted teas for BAKER, CROOP, AND CO., +And SOMERS, who from Eastern shores imported indigo. + +These passengers, by reason of their clinging to a mast, +Upon a desert island were eventually cast. +They hunted for their meals, as ALEXANDER SELKIRK used, +But they couldn't chat together--they had not been introduced. + +For PETER GRAY, and SOMERS too, though certainly in trade, +Were properly particular about the friends they made; +And somehow thus they settled it without a word of mouth - +That GRAY should take the northern half, while SOMERS took the +south. + +On PETER'S portion oysters grew--a delicacy rare, +But oysters were a delicacy PETER couldn't bear. +On SOMERS' side was turtle, on the shingle lying thick, +Which SOMERS couldn't eat, because it always made him sick. + +GRAY gnashed his teeth with envy as he saw a mighty store +Of turtle unmolested on his fellow-creature's shore. +The oysters at his feet aside impatiently he shoved, +For turtle and his mother were the only things he loved. + +And SOMERS sighed in sorrow as he settled in the south, +For the thought of PETER'S oysters brought the water to his mouth. +He longed to lay him down upon the shelly bed, and stuff: +He had often eaten oysters, but had never had enough. + +How they wished an introduction to each other they had had +When on board the Ballyshannon! And it drove them nearly mad +To think how very friendly with each other they might get, +If it wasn't for the arbitrary rule of etiquette! + +One day, when out a-hunting for the mus ridiculus, +GRAY overheard his fellow-man soliloquizing thus: +"I wonder how the playmates of my youth are getting on, +M'CONNELL, S. B. WALTERS, PADDY BYLES, and ROBINSON?" + +These simple words made PETER as delighted as could be, +Old chummies at the Charterhouse were ROBINSON and he! +He walked straight up to SOMERS, then he turned extremely red, +Hesitated, hummed and hawed a bit, then cleared his throat, and +said: + +I beg your pardon--pray forgive me if I seem too bold, +But you have breathed a name I knew familiarly of old. +You spoke aloud of ROBINSON--I happened to be by. +You know him?" "Yes, extremely well." "Allow me, so do I." + +It was enough: they felt they could more pleasantly get on, +For (ah, the magic of the fact!) they each knew ROBINSON! +And Mr. SOMERS' turtle was at PETER'S service quite, +And Mr. SOMERS punished PETER'S oyster-beds all night. + +They soon became like brothers from community of wrongs: +They wrote each other little odes and sang each other songs; +They told each other anecdotes disparaging their wives; +On several occasions, too, they saved each other's lives. + +They felt quite melancholy when they parted for the night, +And got up in the morning soon as ever it was light; +Each other's pleasant company they reckoned so upon, +And all because it happened that they both knew ROBINSON! + +They lived for many years on that inhospitable shore, +And day by day they learned to love each other more and more. +At last, to their astonishment, on getting up one day, +They saw a frigate anchored in the offing of the bay. + +To PETER an idea occurred. "Suppose we cross the main? +So good an opportunity may not be found again." +And SOMERS thought a minute, then ejaculated, "Done! +I wonder how my business in the City's getting on?" + +"But stay," said Mr. PETER: "when in England, as you know, +I earned a living tasting teas for BAKER, CROOP, AND CO., +I may be superseded--my employers think me dead!" +"Then come with me," said SOMERS, "and taste indigo instead." + +But all their plans were scattered in a moment when they found +The vessel was a convict ship from Portland, outward bound; +When a boat came off to fetch them, though they felt it very kind, +To go on board they firmly but respectfully declined. + +As both the happy settlers roared with laughter at the joke, +They recognized a gentlemanly fellow pulling stroke: +'Twas ROBINSON--a convict, in an unbecoming frock! +Condemned to seven years for misappropriating stock!!! + +They laughed no more, for SOMERS thought he had been rather rash +In knowing one whose friend had misappropriated cash; +And PETER thought a foolish tack he must have gone upon +In making the acquaintance of a friend of ROBINSON. + +At first they didn't quarrel very openly, I've heard; +They nodded when they met, and now and then exchanged a word: +The word grew rare, and rarer still the nodding of the head, +And when they meet each other now, they cut each other dead. + +To allocate the island they agreed by word of mouth, +And PETER takes the north again, and SOMERS takes the south; +And PETER has the oysters, which he hates, in layers thick, +And SOMERS has the turtle--turtle always makes him sick. + + + +Ballad: AT A PANTOMIME. BY A BILIOUS ONE. + + + +An Actor sits in doubtful gloom, +His stock-in-trade unfurled, +In a damp funereal dressing-room +In the Theatre Royal, World. + +He comes to town at Christmas-time, +And braves its icy breath, +To play in that favourite pantomime, +Harlequin Life and Death. + +A hoary flowing wig his weird +Unearthly cranium caps, +He hangs a long benevolent beard +On a pair of empty chaps. + +To smooth his ghastly features down +The actor's art he cribs, - +A long and a flowing padded gown. +Bedecks his rattling ribs. + +He cries, "Go on--begin, begin! +Turn on the light of lime - +I'm dressed for jolly Old Christmas, in +A favourite pantomime!" + +The curtain's up--the stage all black - +Time and the year nigh sped - +Time as an advertising quack - +The Old Year nearly dead. + +The wand of Time is waved, and lo! +Revealed Old Christmas stands, +And little children chuckle and crow, +And laugh and clap their hands. + +The cruel old scoundrel brightens up +At the death of the Olden Year, +And he waves a gorgeous golden cup, +And bids the world good cheer. + +The little ones hail the festive King, - +No thought can make them sad. +Their laughter comes with a sounding ring, +They clap and crow like mad! + +They only see in the humbug old +A holiday every year, +And handsome gifts, and joys untold, +And unaccustomed cheer. + +The old ones, palsied, blear, and hoar, +Their breasts in anguish beat - +They've seen him seventy times before, +How well they know the cheat! + +They've seen that ghastly pantomime, +They've felt its blighting breath, +They know that rollicking Christmas-time +Meant Cold and Want and Death, - + +Starvation--Poor Law Union fare - +And deadly cramps and chills, +And illness--illness everywhere, +And crime, and Christmas bills. + +They know Old Christmas well, I ween, +Those men of ripened age; +They've often, often, often seen +That Actor off the stage! + +They see in his gay rotundity +A clumsy stuffed-out dress - +They see in the cup he waves on high +A tinselled emptiness. + +Those aged men so lean and wan, +They've seen it all before, +They know they'll see the charlatan +But twice or three times more. + +And so they bear with dance and song, +And crimson foil and green, +They wearily sit, and grimly long +For the Transformation Scene. + + + +Ballad: HAUNTED. + + + +Haunted? Ay, in a social way +By a body of ghosts in dread array; +But no conventional spectres they - +Appalling, grim, and tricky: +I quail at mine as I'd never quail +At a fine traditional spectre pale, +With a turnip head and a ghostly wail, +And a splash of blood on the dickey! + +Mine are horrible, social ghosts, - +Speeches and women and guests and hosts, +Weddings and morning calls and toasts, +In every bad variety: +Ghosts who hover about the grave +Of all that's manly, free, and brave: +You'll find their names on the architrave +Of that charnel-house, Society. + +Black Monday--black as its school-room ink - +With its dismal boys that snivel and think +Of its nauseous messes to eat and drink, +And its frozen tank to wash in. +That was the first that brought me grief, +And made me weep, till I sought relief +In an emblematical handkerchief, +To choke such baby bosh in. + +First and worst in the grim array- +Ghosts of ghosts that have gone their way, +Which I wouldn't revive for a single day +For all the wealth of PLUTUS - +Are the horrible ghosts that school-days scared: +If the classical ghost that BRUTUS dared +Was the ghost of his "Caesar" unprepared, +I'm sure I pity BRUTUS. + +I pass to critical seventeen; +The ghost of that terrible wedding scene, +When an elderly Colonel stole my Queen, +And woke my dream of heaven. +No schoolgirl decked in her nurse-room curls +Was my gushing innocent Queen of Pearls; +If she wasn't a girl of a thousand girls, +She was one of forty-seven! + +I see the ghost of my first cigar, +Of the thence-arising family jar - +Of my maiden brief (I was at the Bar, +And I called the Judge "Your wushup!") +Of reckless days and reckless nights, +With wrenched-off knockers, extinguished lights, +Unholy songs and tipsy fights, +Which I strove in vain to hush up. + +Ghosts of fraudulent joint-stock banks, +Ghosts of "copy, declined with thanks," +Of novels returned in endless ranks, +And thousands more, I suffer. +The only line to fitly grace +My humble tomb, when I've run my race, +Is, "Reader, this is the resting-place +Of an unsuccessful duffer." + +I've fought them all, these ghosts of mine, +But the weapons I've used are sighs and brine, +And now that I'm nearly forty-nine, +Old age is my chiefest bogy; +For my hair is thinning away at the crown, +And the silver fights with the worn-out brown; +And a general verdict sets me down +As an irreclaimable fogy. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} A version of this ballad is published as a Song, by Mr. +Jeffreys, Soho Square. + +{2} This ballad is published as a Song, under the title "If," by +Messrs. Cramer and Co. + +{3} "Go with me to a Notary--seal me there +Your single bond."--Merchant of Venice, Act I., sc. 3. + +{4} "And there shall she, at Friar Lawrence' cell, +Be shrived and married."--Romeo and Juliet, Act II., sc. 4. + +{5} "And give the fasting horses provender."--Henry the Fifth, Act +IV., sc. 2. + +{6} "Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares."--Troilus and +Cressida, Act I., sc. 3. + +{7} "Then must the Jew be merciful."--Merchant of Venice, Act IV., +sc. 1. + +{8} "The spring, the summer, +The chilling autumn, angry winter, change +Their wonted liveries."--Midsummer Night Dream, Act IV., sc. 1. + +{9} "In the county of Glo'ster, justice of the peace and coram." +Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I., sc. 1. + +{10} "What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?"--King John, Act V., +sc. 2. + +{11} "And I'll provide his executioner."--Henry the Sixth (Second +Part), Act III., sc. 1. + +{12} "The lioness had torn some flesh away, +Which all this while had bled."--As You Like It, Act IV., sc. 3. + +{13} Described by MUNGO PARK. + +{14} "Like a bird."--Slang expression. + +{15} Reprinted from the "The Graphic," by permission of the +proprietors. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifty Bab Ballads, by William S. 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