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diff --git a/old/3babb10.txt b/old/3babb10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e23c623 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/3babb10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4814 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of More Bab Ballads, by W. S. Gilbert +(#4 in our series by W. S. Gilbert) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: More Bab Ballads + +Author: W. S. Gilbert + +Release Date: June, 1997 [EBook #933] +[This file was first posted on June 3, 1997] +[Most recently updated: May 21, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MORE BAB BALLADS *** + + + + +Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +MORE BAB BALLADS + + + + +Contents: + +Mister William +The Bumboat Woman's Story +The Two Ogres +Little Oliver +Pasha Bailey Ben +Lieutenant-Colonel Flare +Lost Mr. Blake +The Baby's Vengeance +The Captain And The Mermaids +Annie Protheroe. A Legend of Stratford-Le-Bow +An Unfortunate Likeness +Gregory Parable, LL.D. +The King Of Canoodle-Dum +First Love +Brave Alum Bey +Sir Barnaby Bampton Boo +The Modest Couple +The Martinet +The Sailor Boy To His Lass +The Reverend Simon Magus +Damon v. Pythias +My Dream +The Bishop Of Rum-Ti-Foo Again +A Worm Will Turn +The Haughty Actor +The Two Majors +Emily, John, James, And I. A Derby Legend +The Perils Of Invisibility +Old Paul And Old Tim +The Mystic Selvagee +The Cunning Woman +Phrenology +The Fairy Curate +The Way Of Wooing +Hongree And Mahry. A Recollection Of A Surrey Melodrama +Etiquette + + + +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: The Two Ogres + + + +Good children, list, if you're inclined, +And wicked children too-- +This pretty ballad is designed +Especially for you. + +Two ogres dwelt in Wickham Wold-- +Each TRAITS distinctive had: +The younger was as good as gold, +The elder was as bad. + +A wicked, disobedient son +Was JAMES M'ALPINE, and +A contrast to the elder one, +Good APPLEBODY BLAND. + +M'ALPINE--brutes like him are few-- +In greediness delights, +A melancholy victim to +Unchastened appetites. + +Good, well-bred children every day +He ravenously ate,-- +All boys were fish who found their way +Into M'ALPINE'S net: + +Boys whose good breeding is innate, +Whose sums are always right; +And boys who don't expostulate +When sent to bed at night; + +And kindly boys who never search +The nests of birds of song; +And serious boys for whom, in church, +No sermon is too long. + +Contrast with JAMES'S greedy haste +And comprehensive hand, +The nice discriminating taste +Of APPLEBODY BLAND. + +BLAND only eats bad boys, who swear-- +Who CAN behave, but DON'T-- +Disgraceful lads who say "don't care," +And "shan't," and "can't," and "won't." + +Who wet their shoes and learn to box, +And say what isn't true, +Who bite their nails and jam their frocks, +And make long noses too; + +Who kick a nurse's aged shin, +And sit in sulky mopes; +And boys who twirl poor kittens in +Distracting zoetropes. + +But JAMES, when he was quite a youth, +Had often been to school, +And though so bad, to tell the truth, +He wasn't quite a fool. + +At logic few with him could vie; +To his peculiar sect +He could propose a fallacy +With singular effect. + +So, when his Mentors said, "Expound-- +Why eat good children--why?" +Upon his Mentors he would round +With this absurd reply: + +"I have been taught to love the good-- +The pure--the unalloyed-- +And wicked boys, I've understood, +I always should avoid. + +"Why do I eat good children--why? +Because I love them so!" +(But this was empty sophistry, +As your Papa can show.) + +Now, though the learning of his friends +Was truly not immense, +They had a way of fitting ends +By rule of common sense. + +"Away, away!" his Mentors cried, +"Thou uncongenial pest! +A quirk's a thing we can't abide, +A quibble we detest! + +"A fallacy in your reply +Our intellect descries, +Although we don't pretend to spy +Exactly where it lies. + +"In misery and penal woes +Must end a glutton's joys; +And learn how ogres punish those +Who dare to eat good boys. + +"Secured by fetter, cramp, and chain, +And gagged securely--so-- +You shall be placed in Drury Lane, +Where only good lads go. + +"Surrounded there by virtuous boys, +You'll suffer torture wus +Than that which constantly annoys +Disgraceful TANTALUS. + +("If you would learn the woes that vex +Poor TANTALUS, down there, +Pray borrow of Papa an ex- +Purgated LEMPRIERE.) + +"But as for BLAND who, as it seems, +Eats only naughty boys, +We've planned a recompense that teems +With gastronomic joys. + +"Where wicked youths in crowds are stowed +He shall unquestioned rule, +And have the run of Hackney Road +Reformatory School!" + + + +Ballad: Little Oliver + + + +EARL JOYCE he was a kind old party +Whom nothing ever could put out, +Though eighty-two, he still was hearty, +Excepting as regarded gout. + +He had one unexampled daughter, +The LADY MINNIE-HAHA JOYCE, +Fair MINNIE-HAHA, "Laughing Water," +So called from her melodious voice. + +By Nature planned for lover-capture, +Her beauty every heart assailed; +The good old nobleman with rapture +Observed how widely she prevailed + +Aloof from all the lordly flockings +Of titled swells who worshipped her, +There stood, in pumps and cotton stockings, +One humble lover--OLIVER. + +He was no peer by Fortune petted, +His name recalled no bygone age; +He was no lordling coronetted-- +Alas! he was a simple page! + +With vain appeals he never bored her, +But stood in silent sorrow by-- +He knew how fondly he adored her, +And knew, alas! how hopelessly! + +Well grounded by a village tutor +In languages alive and past, +He'd say unto himself, "Knee-suitor, +Oh, do not go beyond your last!" + +But though his name could boast no handle, +He could not every hope resign; +As moths will hover round a candle, +So hovered he about her shrine. + +The brilliant candle dazed the moth well: +One day she sang to her Papa +The air that MARIE sings with BOTHWELL +In NEIDERMEYER'S opera. + +(Therein a stable boy, it's stated, +Devoutly loved a noble dame, +Who ardently reciprocated +His rather injudicious flame.) + +And then, before the piano closing +(He listened coyly at the door), +She sang a song of her composing-- +I give one verse from half a score: + + +BALLAD + +Why, pretty page, art ever sighing? +Is sorrow in thy heartlet lying? +Come, set a-ringing +Thy laugh entrancing, +And ever singing +And ever dancing. +Ever singing, Tra! la! la! +Ever dancing, Tra! la! la! +Ever singing, ever dancing, +Ever singing, Tra! la! la! + +He skipped for joy like little muttons, +He danced like Esmeralda's kid. +(She did not mean a boy in buttons, +Although he fancied that she did.) + +Poor lad! convinced he thus would win her, +He wore out many pairs of soles; +He danced when taking down the dinner-- +He danced when bringing up the coals. + +He danced and sang (however laden) +With his incessant "Tra! la! la!" +Which much surprised the noble maiden, +And puzzled even her Papa. + +He nourished now his flame and fanned it, +He even danced at work below. +The upper servants wouldn't stand it, +And BOWLES the butler told him so. + +At length on impulse acting blindly, +His love he laid completely bare; +The gentle Earl received him kindly +And told the lad to take a chair. + +"Oh, sir," the suitor uttered sadly, +"Don't give your indignation vent; +I fear you think I'm acting madly, +Perhaps you think me insolent?" + +The kindly Earl repelled the notion; +His noble bosom heaved a sigh, +His fingers trembled with emotion, +A tear stood in his mild blue eye: + +For, oh! the scene recalled too plainly +The half-forgotten time when he, +A boy of nine, had worshipped vainly +A governess of forty-three! + +"My boy," he said, in tone consoling, +"Give up this idle fancy--do-- +The song you heard my daughter trolling +Did not, indeed, refer to you. + +"I feel for you, poor boy, acutely; +I would not wish to give you pain; +Your pangs I estimate minutely,-- +I, too, have loved, and loved in vain. + +"But still your humble rank and station +For MINNIE surely are not meet"-- +He said much more in conversation +Which it were needless to repeat. + +Now I'm prepared to bet a guinea, +Were this a mere dramatic case, +The page would have eloped with MINNIE, +But, no--he only left his place. + +The simple Truth is my detective, +With me Sensation can't abide; +The Likely beats the mere Effective, +And Nature is my only guide. + + + +Ballad: Pasha Bailey Ben + + + +A proud Pasha was BAILEY BEN, +His wives were three, his tails were ten; +His form was dignified, but stout, +Men called him "Little Roundabout." + +His Importance + +Pale Pilgrims came from o'er the sea +To wait on PASHA BAILEY B., +All bearing presents in a crowd, +For B. was poor as well as proud. + +His Presents + +They brought him onions strung on ropes, +And cold boiled beef, and telescopes, +And balls of string, and shrimps, and guns, +And chops, and tacks, and hats, and buns. + +More of them + +They brought him white kid gloves, and pails, +And candlesticks, and potted quails, +And capstan-bars, and scales and weights, +And ornaments for empty grates. + +Why I mention these + +My tale is not of these--oh no! +I only mention them to show +The divers gifts that divers men +Brought o'er the sea to BAILEY BEN. + +His Confidant + +A confidant had BAILEY B., +A gay Mongolian dog was he; +I am not good at Turkish names, +And so I call him SIMPLE JAMES. + +His Confidant's Countenance + +A dreadful legend you might trace +In SIMPLE JAMES'S honest face, +For there you read, in Nature's print, +"A Scoundrel of the Deepest Tint." + +His Character + +A deed of blood, or fire, or flames, +Was meat and drink to SIMPLE JAMES: +To hide his guilt he did not plan, +But owned himself a bad young man. + +The Author to his Reader + +And why on earth good BAILEY BEN +(The wisest, noblest, best of men) +Made SIMPLE JAMES his right-hand man +Is quite beyond my mental span. + +The same, continued + +But there--enough of gruesome deeds! +My heart, in thinking of them, bleeds; +And so let SIMPLE JAMES take wing,-- +'Tis not of him I'm going to sing. + +The Pasha's Clerk + +Good PASHA BAILEY kept a clerk +(For BAILEY only made his mark), +His name was MATTHEW WYCOMBE COO, +A man of nearly forty-two. + +His Accomplishments + +No person that I ever knew +Could "yodel" half as well as COO, +And Highlanders exclaimed, "Eh, weel!" +When COO began to dance a reel. + +His Kindness to the Pasha's Wives + +He used to dance and sing and play +In such an unaffected way, +He cheered the unexciting lives +Of PASHA BAILEY'S lovely wives. + +The Author to his Reader + +But why should I encumber you +With histories of MATTHEW COO? +Let MATTHEW COO at once take wing,-- +'Tis not of COO I'm going to sing. + +The Author's Muse + +Let me recall my wandering Muse; +She SHALL be steady if I choose-- +She roves, instead of helping me +To tell the deeds of BAILEY B. + +The Pasha's Visitor + +One morning knocked, at half-past eight, +A tall Red Indian at his gate. +In Turkey, as you're p'raps aware, +Red Indians are extremely rare. + +The Visitor's Outfit + +Mocassins decked his graceful legs, +His eyes were black, and round as eggs, +And on his neck, instead of beads, +Hung several Catawampous seeds. + +What the Visitor said + +"Ho, ho!" he said, "thou pale-faced one, +Poor offspring of an Eastern sun, +You've NEVER seen the Red Man skip +Upon the banks of Mississip!" + +The Author's Moderation + +To say that BAILEY oped his eyes +Would feebly paint his great surprise-- +To say it almost made him die +Would be to paint it much too high. + +The Author to his Reader + +But why should I ransack my head +To tell you all that Indian said; +We'll let the Indian man take wing,-- +'Tis not of him I'm going to sing. + +The Reader to the Author + +Come, come, I say, that's quite enough +Of this absurd disjointed stuff; +Now let's get on to that affair +About LIEUTENANT-COLONEL FLARE. + + + +Ballad: Lieutenant-Colonel Flare + + + +The earth has armies plenty, +And semi-warlike bands, +I dare say there are twenty +In European lands; +But, oh! in no direction +You'd find one to compare +In brotherly affection +With that of COLONEL FLARE. + +His soldiers might be rated +As military Pearls. +As unsophisticated +As pretty little girls! +They never smoked or ratted, +Or talked of Sues or Polls; +The Sergeant-Major tatted, +The others nursed their dolls. + +He spent his days in teaching +These truly solemn facts; +There's little use in preaching, +Or circulating tracts. +(The vainest plan invented +For stifling other creeds, +Unless it's supplemented +With charitable DEEDS.) + +He taught his soldiers kindly +To give at Hunger's call: +"Oh, better far give blindly, +Than never give at all! +Though sympathy be kindled +By Imposition's game, +Oh, better far be swindled +Than smother up its flame!" + +His means were far from ample +For pleasure or for dress, +Yet note this bright example +Of single-heartedness: +Though ranking as a Colonel, +His pay was but a groat, +While their reward diurnal +Was--each a five-pound note. + +Moreover,--this evinces +His kindness, you'll allow,-- +He fed them all like princes, +And lived himself on cow. +He set them all regaling +On curious wines, and dear, +While he would sit pale-ale-ing, +Or quaffing ginger-beer. + +Then at his instigation +(A pretty fancy this) +Their daily pay and ration +He'd take in change for his; +They brought it to him weekly, +And he without a groan, +Would take it from them meekly +And give them all his own! + +Though not exactly knighted +As knights, of course, should be, +Yet no one so delighted +In harmless chivalry. +If peasant girl or ladye +Beneath misfortunes sank, +Whate'er distinctions made he, +They were not those of rank. + +No maiden young and comely +Who wanted good advice +(However poor or homely) +Need ask him for it twice. +He'd wipe away the blindness +That comes of teary dew; +His sympathetic kindness +No sort of limit knew. + +He always hated dealing +With men who schemed or planned; +A person harsh--unfeeling-- +The Colonel could not stand. +He hated cold, suspecting, +Official men in blue, +Who pass their lives detecting +The crimes that others do. + +For men who'd shoot a sparrow, +Or immolate a worm +Beneath a farmer's harrow, +He could not find a term. +Humanely, ay, and knightly +He dealt with such an one; +He took and tied him tightly, +And blew him from a gun. + +The earth has armies plenty, +And semi-warlike bands, +I'm certain there are twenty +In European lands; +But, oh! in no direction +You'd find one to compare +In brotherly affection +With that of COLONEL FLARE. + + + +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 {1}--parson {2}--groom {3}-- +The bard deer-stealing, after dark. + +The bard a tradesman {4}--and a Jew {5}-- +The bard a botanist {6}--a beak {7}-- +The bard a skilled musician {8} too-- +A sheriff {9} and a surgeon {10} 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: Gregory Parable, LL.D. + + + +A leafy cot, where no dry rot +Had ever been by tenant seen, +Where ivy clung and wopses stung, +Where beeses hummed and drummed and strummed, +Where treeses grew and breezes blew-- +A thatchy roof, quite waterproof, +Where countless herds of dicky-birds +Built twiggy beds to lay their heads +(My mother begs I'll make it "eggs," +But though it's true that dickies do +Construct a nest with chirpy noise, +With view to rest their eggy joys, +'Neath eavy sheds, yet eggs and beds, +As I explain to her in vain +Five hundred times, are faulty rhymes). +'Neath such a cot, built on a plot +Of freehold land, dwelt MARY and +Her worthy father, named by me +GREGORY PARABLE, LL.D. + +He knew no guile, this simple man, +No worldly wile, or plot, or plan, +Except that plot of freehold land +That held the cot, and MARY, and +Her worthy father, named by me +GREGORY PARABLE, LL.D. + +A grave and learned scholar he, +Yet simple as a child could be. +He'd shirk his meal to sit and cram +A goodish deal of Eton Gram. +No man alive could him nonplus +With vocative of filius; +No man alive more fully knew +The passive of a verb or two; +None better knew the worth than he +Of words that end in b, d, t. +Upon his green in early spring +He might be seen endeavouring +To understand the hooks and crooks +Of HENRY and his Latin books; +Or calling for his "Caesar on +The Gallic War," like any don; +Or, p'raps, expounding unto all +How mythic BALBUS built a wall. +So lived the sage who's named by me +GREGORY PARABLE, LL.D. + +To him one autumn day there came +A lovely youth of mystic name: +He took a lodging in the house, +And fell a-dodging snipe and grouse, +For, oh! that mild scholastic one +Let shooting for a single gun. + +By three or four, when sport was o'er, +The Mystic One laid by his gun, +And made sheep's eyes of giant size, +Till after tea, at MARY P. +And MARY P. (so kind was she), +She, too, made eyes of giant size, +Whose every dart right through the heart +Appeared to run that Mystic One. +The Doctor's whim engrossing him, +He did not know they flirted so. +For, save at tea, "musa musae," +As I'm advised, monopolised +And rendered blind his giant mind. +But looking up above his cup +One afternoon, he saw them spoon. +"Aha!" quoth he, "you naughty lass! +As quaint old OVID says, 'Amas!'" + +The Mystic Youth avowed the truth, +And, claiming ruth, he said, "In sooth +I love your daughter, aged man: +Refuse to join us if you can. +Treat not my offer, sir, with scorn, +I'm wealthy though I'm lowly born." +"Young sir," the aged scholar said, +"I never thought you meant to wed: +Engrossed completely with my books, +I little noticed lovers' looks. +I've lived so long away from man, +I do not know of any plan +By which to test a lover's worth, +Except, perhaps, the test of birth. +I've half forgotten in this wild +A father's duty to his child. +It is his place, I think it's said, +To see his daughters richly wed +To dignitaries of the earth-- +If possible, of noble birth. +If noble birth is not at hand, +A father may, I understand +(And this affords a chance for you), +Be satisfied to wed her to +A BOUCICAULT or BARING--which +Means any one who's very rich. +Now, there's an Earl who lives hard by,-- +My child and I will go and try +If he will make the maid his bride-- +If not, to you she shall be tied." + +They sought the Earl that very day; +The Sage began to say his say. +The Earl (a very wicked man, +Whose face bore Vice's blackest ban) +Cut short the scholar's simple tale, +And said in voice to make them quail, +"Pooh! go along! you're drunk, no doubt-- +Here, PETERS, turn these people out!" + +The Sage, rebuffed in mode uncouth, +Returning, met the Mystic Youth. +"My darling boy," the Scholar said, +"Take MARY--blessings on your head!" + +The Mystic Boy undid his vest, +And took a parchment from his breast, +And said, "Now, by that noble brow, +I ne'er knew father such as thou! +The sterling rule of common sense +Now reaps its proper recompense. +Rejoice, my soul's unequalled Queen, +For I am DUKE OF GRETNA GREEN!" + + + +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: First Love + + + +A clergyman in Berkshire dwelt, +The REVEREND BERNARD POWLES, +And in his church there weekly knelt +At least a hundred souls. + +There little ELLEN you might see, +The modest rustic belle; +In maidenly simplicity, +She loved her BERNARD well. + +Though ELLEN wore a plain silk gown +Untrimmed with lace or fur, +Yet not a husband in the town +But wished his wife like her. + +Though sterner memories might fade, +You never could forget +The child-form of that baby-maid, +The Village Violet! + +A simple frightened loveliness, +Whose sacred spirit-part +Shrank timidly from worldly stress, +And nestled in your heart. + +POWLES woo'd with every well-worn plan +And all the usual wiles +With which a well-schooled gentleman +A simple heart beguiles. + +The hackneyed compliments that bore +World-folks like you and me, +Appeared to her as if they wore +The crown of Poesy. + +His winking eyelid sang a song +Her heart could understand, +Eternity seemed scarce too long +When BERNARD squeezed her hand. + +He ordered down the martial crew +Of GODFREY'S Grenadiers, +And COOTE conspired with TINNEY to +Ecstaticise her ears. + +Beneath her window, veiled from eye, +They nightly took their stand; +On birthdays supplemented by +The Covent Garden band. + +And little ELLEN, all alone, +Enraptured sat above, +And thought how blest she was to own +The wealth of POWLES'S love. + +I often, often wonder what +Poor ELLEN saw in him; +For calculated he was NOT +To please a woman's whim. + +He wasn't good, despite the air +An M.B. waistcoat gives; +Indeed, his dearest friends declare +No greater humbug lives. + +No kind of virtue decked this priest, +He'd nothing to allure; +He wasn't handsome in the least,-- +He wasn't even poor. + +No--he was cursed with acres fat +(A Christian's direst ban), +And gold--yet, notwithstanding that, +Poor ELLEN loved the man. + +As unlike BERNARD as could be +Was poor old AARON WOOD +(Disgraceful BERNARD'S curate he): +He was extremely good. + +A BAYARD in his moral pluck +Without reproach or fear, +A quiet venerable duck +With fifty pounds a year. + +No fault had he--no fad, except +A tendency to strum, +In mode at which you would have wept, +A dull harmonium. + +He had no gold with which to hire +The minstrels who could best +Convey a notion of the fire +That raged within his breast. + +And so, when COOTE and TINNEY'S Own +Had tootled all they knew, +And when the Guards, completely blown, +Exhaustedly withdrew, + +And NELL began to sleepy feel, +Poor AARON then would come, +And underneath her window wheel +His plain harmonium. + +He woke her every morn at two, +And having gained her ear, +In vivid colours AARON drew +The sluggard's grim career. + +He warbled Apiarian praise, +And taught her in his chant +To shun the dog's pugnacious ways, +And imitate the ant. + +Still NELL seemed not, how much he played, +To love him out and out, +Although the admirable maid +Respected him, no doubt. + +She told him of her early vow, +And said as BERNARD'S wife +It might be hers to show him how +To rectify his life. + +"You are so pure, so kind, so true, +Your goodness shines so bright, +What use would ELLEN be to you? +Believe me, you're all right." + +She wished him happiness and health, +And flew on lightning wings +To BERNARD with his dangerous wealth +And all the woes it brings. + + + +Ballad: Brave Alum Bey + + + +Oh, big was the bosom of brave ALUM BEY, +And also the region that under it lay, +In safety and peril remarkably cool, +And he dwelt on the banks of the river Stamboul. + +Each morning he went to his garden, to cull +A bunch of zenana or sprig of bul-bul, +And offered the bouquet, in exquisite bloom, +To BACKSHEESH, the daughter of RAHAT LAKOUM. + +No maiden like BACKSHEESH could tastily cook +A kettle of kismet or joint of tchibouk, +As ALUM, brave fellow! sat pensively by, +With a bright sympathetic ka-bob in his eye. + +Stern duty compelled him to leave her one day-- +(A ship's supercargo was brave ALUM BEY)-- +To pretty young BACKSHEESH he made a salaam, +And sailed to the isle of Seringapatam. + +"O ALUM," said she, "think again, ere you go-- +Hareems may arise and Moguls they may blow; +You may strike on a fez, or be drowned, which is wuss!" +But ALUM embraced her and spoke to her thus: + +"Cease weeping, fair BACKSHEESH! I willingly swear +Cork jackets and trousers I always will wear, +And I also throw in a large number of oaths +That I never--no, NEVER--will take off my clothes!" + +* * * * * + +They left Madagascar away on their right, +And made Clapham Common the following night, +Then lay on their oars for a fortnight or two, +Becalmed in the ocean of Honololu. + +One day ALUM saw, with alarm in his breast, +A cloud on the nor-sow-sow-nor-sow-nor-west; +The wind it arose, and the crew gave a scream, +For they knew it--they knew it!--the dreaded Hareem!! + +The mast it went over, and so did the sails, +Brave ALUM threw over his casks and his bales; +The billows arose as the weather grew thick, +And all except ALUM were terribly sick. + +The crew were but three, but they holloa'd for nine, +They howled and they blubbered with wail and with whine: +The skipper he fainted away in the fore, +For he hadn't the heart for to skip any more. + +"Ho, coward!" said ALUM, "with heart of a child! +Thou son of a party whose grave is defiled! +Is ALUM in terror? is ALUM afeard? +Ho! ho! If you had one I'd laugh at your beard." + +His eyeball it gleamed like a furnace of coke; +He boldly inflated his clothes as he spoke; +He daringly felt for the corks on his chest, +And he recklessly tightened the belt at his breast. + +For he knew, the brave ALUM, that, happen what might, +With belts and cork-jacketing, HE was all right; +Though others might sink, he was certain to swim,-- +No Hareem whatever had terrors for him! + +They begged him to spare from his personal store +A single cork garment--they asked for no more; +But he couldn't, because of the number of oaths +That he never--no, never!--would take off his clothes. + +The billows dash o'er them and topple around, +They see they are pretty near sure to be drowned. +A terrible wave o'er the quarter-deck breaks, +And the vessel it sinks in a couple of shakes! + +The dreadful Hareem, though it knows how to blow, +Expends all its strength in a minute or so; +When the vessel had foundered, as I have detailed, +The tempest subsided, and quiet prevailed. + +One seized on a cork with a yelling "Ha! ha!" +(Its bottle had 'prisoned a pint of Pacha)-- +Another a toothpick--another a tray-- +"Alas! it is useless!" said brave ALUM BEY. + +"To holloa and kick is a very bad plan: +Get it over, my tulips, as soon as you can; +You'd better lay hold of a good lump of lead, +And cling to it tightly until you are dead. + +"Just raise your hands over your pretty heads--so-- +Right down to the bottom you're certain to go. +Ta! ta! I'm afraid we shall not meet again"-- +For the truly courageous are truly humane. + +Brave ALUM was picked up the very next day-- +A man-o'-war sighted him smoking away; +With hunger and cold he was ready to drop, +So they sent him below and they gave him a chop. + +O reader, or readress, whichever you be, +You weep for the crew who have sunk in the sea? +O reader, or readress, read farther, and dry +The bright sympathetic ka-bob in your eye. + +That ship had a grapple with three iron spikes,-- +It's lowered, and, ha! on a something it strikes! +They haul it aboard with a British "heave-ho!" +And what it has fished the drawing will show. + +There was WILSON, and PARKER, and TOMLINSON, too-- +(The first was the captain, the others the crew)-- +As lively and spry as a Malabar ape, +Quite pleased and surprised at their happy escape. + +And ALUM, brave fellow, who stood in the fore, +And never expected to look on them more, +Was really delighted to see them again, +For the truly courageous are truly humane. + + + +Ballad: Sir Barnaby Bampton Boo + + + +This is SIR BARNABY BAMPTON BOO, +Last of a noble race, +BARNABY BAMPTON, coming to woo, +All at a deuce of a pace. +BARNABY BAMPTON BOO, +Here is a health to you: +Here is wishing you luck, you elderly buck-- +BARNABY BAMPTON BOO! + +The excellent women of Tuptonvee +Knew SIR BARNABY BOO; +One of them surely his bride would be, +But dickens a soul knew who. +Women of Tuptonvee, +Here is a health to ye +For a Baronet, dears, you would cut off your ears, +Women of Tuptonvee! + +Here are old MR. and MRS. DE PLOW +(PETER his Christian name), +They kept seven oxen, a pig, and a cow-- +Farming it was their game. +Worthy old PETER DE PLOW, +Here is a health to thou: +Your race isn't run, though you're seventy-one, +Worthy old PETER DE PLOW! + +To excellent MR. and MRS. DE PLOW +Came SIR BARNABY BOO, +He asked for their daughter, and told 'em as how +He was as rich as a Jew. +BARNABY BAMPTON'S wealth, +Here is your jolly good health: +I'd never repine if you came to be mine, +BARNABY BAMPTON'S wealth! + +"O great SIR BARNABY BAMPTON BOO" +(Said PLOW to that titled swell), +"My missus has given me daughters two-- +AMELIA and VOLATILE NELL!" +AMELIA and VOLATILE NELL, +I hope you're uncommonly well: +You two pretty pearls--you extremely nice girls-- +AMELIA and VOLATILE NELL! + +"AMELIA is passable only, in face, +But, oh! she's a worthy girl; +Superior morals like hers would grace +The home of a belted Earl." +Morality, heavenly link! +To you I'll eternally drink: +I'm awfully fond of that heavenly bond, +Morality, heavenly link! + +"Now NELLY'S the prettier, p'raps, of my gals, +But, oh! she's a wayward chit; +She dresses herself in her showy fal-lals, +And doesn't read TUPPER a bit!" +O TUPPER, philosopher true, +How do you happen to do? +A publisher looks with respect on your books, +For they DO sell, philosopher true! + +The Bart. (I'll be hanged if I drink him again, +Or care if he's ill or well), +He sneered at the goodness of MILLY THE PLAIN, +And cottoned to VOLATILE NELL! +O VOLATILE NELLY DE P.! +Be hanged if I'll empty to thee: +I like worthy maids, not mere frivolous jades, +VOLATILE NELLY DE P.! + +They bolted, the Bart. and his frivolous dear, +And MILLY was left to pout; +For years they've got on very well, as I hear, +But soon he will rue it, no doubt. +O excellent MILLY DE PLOW, +I really can't drink to you now; +My head isn't strong, and the song has been long, +Excellent MILLY DE PLOW! + + + +Ballad: The Modest Couple + + + +When man and maiden meet, I like to see a drooping eye, +I always droop my own--I am the shyest of the shy. +I'm also fond of bashfulness, and sitting down on thorns, +For modesty's a quality that womankind adorns. + +Whenever I am introduced to any pretty maid, +My knees they knock together, just as if I were afraid; +I flutter, and I stammer, and I turn a pleasing red, +For to laugh, and flirt, and ogle I consider most ill-bred. + +But still in all these matters, as in other things below, +There is a proper medium, as I'm about to show. +I do not recommend a newly-married pair to try +To carry on as PETER carried on with SARAH BLIGH. + +Betrothed they were when very young--before they'd learnt to speak +(For SARAH was but six days old, and PETER was a week); +Though little more than babies at those early ages, yet +They bashfully would faint when they occasionally met. + +They blushed, and flushed, and fainted, till they reached the age of +nine, +When PETER'S good papa (he was a Baron of the Rhine) +Determined to endeavour some sound argument to find +To bring these shy young people to a proper frame of mind. + +He told them that as SARAH was to be his PETER'S bride, +They might at least consent to sit at table side by side; +He begged that they would now and then shake hands, till he was hoarse, +Which SARAH thought indelicate, and PETER very coarse. + +And PETER in a tremble to the blushing maid would say, +"You must excuse papa, MISS BLIGH,--it is his mountain way." +Says SARAH, "His behaviour I'll endeavour to forget, +But your papa's the coarsest person that I ever met. + +"He plighted us without our leave, when we were very young, +Before we had begun articulating with the tongue. +His underbred suggestions fill your SARAH with alarm; +Why, gracious me! he'll ask us next to walk out arm-in-arm!" + +At length when SARAH reached the legal age of twenty-one, +The Baron he determined to unite her to his son; +And SARAH in a fainting-fit for weeks unconscious lay, +And PETER blushed so hard you might have heard him miles away. + +And when the time arrived for taking SARAH to his heart, +They were married in two churches half-a-dozen miles apart +(Intending to escape all public ridicule and chaff), +And the service was conducted by electric telegraph. + +And when it was concluded, and the priest had said his say, +Until the time arrived when they were both to drive away, +They never spoke or offered for to fondle or to fawn, +For HE waited in the attic, and SHE waited on the lawn. + +At length, when four o'clock arrived, and it was time to go, +The carriage was announced, but decent SARAH answered "No! +Upon my word, I'd rather sleep my everlasting nap, +Than go and ride alone with MR. PETER in a trap." + +And PETER'S over-sensitive and highly-polished mind +Wouldn't suffer him to sanction a proceeding of the kind; +And further, he declared he suffered overwhelming shocks +At the bare idea of having any coachman on the box. + +So PETER into one turn-out incontinently rushed, +While SARAH in a second trap sat modestly and blushed; +And MR. NEWMAN'S coachman, on authority I've heard, +Drove away in gallant style upon the coach-box of a third. + +Now, though this modest couple in the matter of the car +Were very likely carrying a principle too far, +I hold their shy behaviour was more laudable in them +Than that of PETER'S brother with MISS SARAH'S sister EM. + +ALPHONSO, who in cool assurance all creation licks, +He up and said to EMMIE (who had impudence for six), +"MISS EMILY, I love you--will you marry? Say the word!" +And EMILY said, "Certainly, ALPHONSO, like a bird!" + +I do not recommend a newly-married pair to try +To carry on as PETER carried on with SARAH BLIGH, +But still their shy behaviour was more laudable in them +Than that of PETER'S brother with MISS SARAH'S sister EM. + + + +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: Damon v. Pythias + + + +Two better friends you wouldn't pass +Throughout a summer's day, +Than DAMON and his PYTHIAS,-- +Two merchant princes they. + +At school together they contrived +All sorts of boyish larks; +And, later on, together thrived +As merry merchants' clerks. + +And then, when many years had flown, +They rose together till +They bought a business of their own-- +And they conduct it still. + +They loved each other all their lives, +Dissent they never knew, +And, stranger still, their very wives +Were rather friendly too. + +Perhaps you think, to serve my ends, +These statements I refute, +When I admit that these dear friends +Were parties to a suit? + +But 'twas a friendly action, for +Good PYTHIAS, as you see, +Fought merely as executor, +And DAMON as trustee. + +They laughed to think, as through the throng +Of suitors sad they passed, +That they, who'd lived and loved so long, +Should go to law at last. + +The junior briefs they kindly let +Two sucking counsel hold; +These learned persons never yet +Had fingered suitors' gold. + +But though the happy suitors two +Were friendly as could be, +Not so the junior counsel who +Were earning maiden fee. + +They too, till then, were friends. At school +They'd done each other's sums, +And under Oxford's gentle rule +Had been the closest chums. + +But now they met with scowl and grin +In every public place, +And often snapped their fingers in +Each other's learned face. + +It almost ended in a fight +When they on path or stair +Met face to face. They made it quite +A personal affair. + +And when at length the case was called +(It came on rather late), +Spectators really were appalled +To see their deadly hate. + +One junior rose--with eyeballs tense, +And swollen frontal veins: +To all his powers of eloquence +He gave the fullest reins. + +His argument was novel--for +A verdict he relied +On blackening the junior +Upon the other side. + +"Oh," said the Judge, in robe and fur, +"The matter in dispute +To arbitration pray refer-- +This is a friendly suit." + +And PYTHIAS, in merry mood, +Digged DAMON in the side; +And DAMON, tickled with the feud, +With other digs replied. + +But oh! those deadly counsel twain, +Who were such friends before, +Were never reconciled again-- +They quarrelled more and more. + +At length it happened that they met +On Alpine heights one day, +And thus they paid each one his debt, +Their fury had its way-- + +They seized each other in a trice, +With scorn and hatred filled, +And, falling from a precipice, +They, both of them, were killed. + + + +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!'" {11} + +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: A Worm Will Turn + + + +I love a man who'll smile and joke +When with misfortune crowned; +Who'll pun beneath a pauper's yoke, +And as he breaks his daily toke, +Conundrums gay propound. + +Just such a man was BERNARD JUPP, +He scoffed at Fortune's frown; +He gaily drained his bitter cup-- +Though Fortune often threw him up, +It never cast him down. + +Though years their share of sorrow bring, +We know that far above +All other griefs, are griefs that spring +From some misfortune happening +To those we really love. + +E'en sorrow for another's woe +Our BERNARD failed to quell; +Though by this special form of blow +No person ever suffered so, +Or bore his grief so well. + +His father, wealthy and well clad, +And owning house and park, +Lost every halfpenny he had, +And then became (extremely sad!) +A poor attorney's clerk. + +All sons it surely would appal, +Except the passing meek, +To see a father lose his all, +And from an independence fall +To one pound ten a week! + +But JUPP shook off this sorrow's weight, +And, like a Christian son, +Proved Poverty a happy fate-- +Proved Wealth to be a devil's bait, +To lure poor sinners on. + +With other sorrows BERNARD coped, +For sorrows came in packs; +His cousins with their housemaids sloped-- +His uncles forged--his aunts eloped-- +His sisters married blacks. + +But BERNARD, far from murmuring +(Exemplar, friends, to us), +Determined to his faith to cling,-- +He made the best of everything, +And argued softly thus: + +"'Twere harsh my uncles' forging knack +Too rudely to condemn-- +My aunts, repentant, may come back, +And blacks are nothing like as black +As people colour them!" + +Still Fate, with many a sorrow rife, +Maintained relentless fight: +His grandmamma next lost her life, +Then died the mother of his wife, +But still he seemed all right. + +His brother fond (the only link +To life that bound him now) +One morning, overcome by drink, +He broke his leg (the right, I think) +In some disgraceful row. + +But did my BERNARD swear and curse? +Oh no--to murmur loth, +He only said, "Go, get a nurse: +Be thankful that it isn't worse; +You might have broken both!" + +But worms who watch without concern +The cockchafer on thorns, +Or beetles smashed, themselves will turn +If, walking through the slippery fern, +You tread upon their corns. + +One night as BERNARD made his track +Through Brompton home to bed, +A footpad, with a vizor black, +Took watch and purse, and dealt a crack +On BERNARD'S saint-like head. + +It was too much--his spirit rose, +He looked extremely cross. +Men thought him steeled to mortal foes, +But no--he bowed to countless blows, +But kicked against this loss. + +He finally made up his mind +Upon his friends to call; +Subscription lists were largely signed, +For men were really glad to find +Him mortal, after all! + + + +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: Old Paul And Old Tim + + + +When rival adorers come courting a maid, +There's something or other may often be said, +Why HE should be pitched upon rather than HIM. +This wasn't the case with Old PAUL and Old TIM. + +No soul could discover a reason at all +For marrying TIMOTHY rather than PAUL; +Though all could have offered good reasons, on oath, +Against marrying either--or marrying both. + +They were equally wealthy and equally old, +They were equally timid and equally bold; +They were equally tall as they stood in their shoes-- +Between them, in fact, there was nothing to choose. + +Had I been young EMILY, I should have said, +"You're both much too old for a pretty young maid, +Threescore at the least you are verging upon"; +But I wasn't young EMILY. Let us get on. + +No coward's blood ran in young EMILY'S veins, +Her martial old father loved bloody campaigns; +At the rumours of battles all over the globe +He pricked up his ears like the war-horse in "Job." + +He chuckled to hear of a sudden surprise-- +Of soldiers, compelled, through an enemy's spies, +Without any knapsacks or shakos to flee-- +For an eminent army-contractor was he. + +So when her two lovers, whose patience was tried, +Implored her between them at once to decide, +She told them she'd marry whichever might bring +Good proofs of his doing the pluckiest thing. + +They both went away with a qualified joy: +That coward, Old PAUL, chose a very small boy, +And when no one was looking, in spite of his fears, +He set to work boxing that little boy's ears. + +The little boy struggled and tugged at his hair, +But the lion was roused, and Old PAUL didn't care; +He smacked him, and whacked him, and boxed him, and kicked +Till the poor little beggar was royally licked. + +Old TIM knew a trick worth a dozen of that, +So he called for his stick and he called for his hat. +"I'll cover myself with cheap glory--I'll go +And wallop the Frenchmen who live in Soho! + +"The German invader is ravaging France +With infantry rifle and cavalry lance, +And beautiful Paris is fighting her best +To shake herself free from her terrible guest. + +"The Frenchmen in London, in craven alarms, +Have all run away from the summons to arms; +They haven't the pluck of a pigeon--I'll go +And wallop the Frenchmen who skulk in Soho!" + +Old TIMOTHY tried it and found it succeed: +That day he caused many French noses to bleed; +Through foggy Soho he spread fear and dismay, +And Frenchmen all round him in agony lay. + +He took care to abstain from employing his fist +On the old and the crippled, for they might resist; +A crippled old man may have pluck in his breast, +But the young and the strong ones are cowards confest. + +Old TIM and Old PAUL, with the list of their foes, +Prostrated themselves at their EMILY'S toes: +"Oh, which of us two is the pluckier blade?" +And EMILY answered and EMILY said: + +"Old TIM has thrashed runaway Frenchmen in scores, +Who ought to be guarding their cities and shores; +Old PAUL has made little chaps' noses to bleed-- +Old PAUL has accomplished the pluckier deed!" + + + +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: The Cunning Woman + + + +On all Arcadia's sunny plain, +On all Arcadia's hill, +None were so blithe as BILL and JANE, +So blithe as JANE and BILL. + +No social earthquake e'er occurred +To rack their common mind: +To them a Panic was a word-- +A Crisis, empty wind. + +No Stock Exchange disturbed the lad +With overwhelming shocks-- +BILL ploughed with all the shares he had, +JANE planted all her stocks. + +And learn in what a simple way +Their pleasures they enhanced-- +JANE danced like any lamb all day, +BILL piped as well as danced. + +Surrounded by a twittling crew, +Of linnet, lark, and thrush, +BILL treated his young lady to +This sentimental gush: + +"Oh, JANE, how true I am to you! +How true you are to me! +And how we woo, and how we coo! +So fond a pair are we! + +"To think, dear JANE, that anyways. +Your chiefest end and aim +Is, one of these fine summer days, +To bear my humble name!" + +Quoth JANE, "Well, as you put the case, +I'm true enough, no doubt, +But then, you see, in this here place +There's none to cut you out. + +"But, oh! if anybody came-- +A Lord or any such-- +I do not think your humble name +Would fascinate me much. + +"For though your mates, you often boast. +You distance out-and-out; +Still, in the abstract, you're a most +Uncompromising lout!" + +Poor BILL, he gave a heavy sigh, +He tried in vain to speak-- +A fat tear started to each eye +And coursed adown each cheek. + +For, oh! right well in truth he knew +That very self-same day, +The LORD DE JACOB PILLALOO +Was coming there to stay! + +The LORD DE JACOB PILLALOO +All proper maidens shun-- +He loves all women, it is true, +But never marries one. + +Now JANE, with all her mad self-will, +Was no coquette--oh no! +She really loved her faithful BILL, +And thus she tuned her woe: + +"Oh, willow, willow, o'er the lea! +And willow once again! +The Peer will fall in love with me! +Why wasn't I made plain?" + +* * * * * + +A cunning woman lived hard by, +A sorceressing dame, +MACCATACOMB DE SALMON-EYE +Was her uncommon name. + +To her good JANE, with kindly yearn +For BILL'S increasing pain, +Repaired in secrecy to learn +How best to make her plain. + +"Oh, JANE," the worthy woman said, +"This mystic phial keep, +And rub its liquor in your head +Before you go to sleep. + +"When you awake next day, I trow, +You'll look in form and hue +To others just as you do now-- +But not to PILLALOO! + +"When you approach him, you will find +He'll think you coarse--unkempt-- +And rudely bid you get behind, +With undisguised contempt." + +The LORD DE PILLALOO arrived +With his expensive train, +And when in state serenely hived, +He sent for BILL and JANE. + +"Oh, spare her, LORD OF PILLALOO! +(Said BILL) if wed you be, +There's anything I'D rather do +Than flirt with LADY P." + +The Lord he gazed in Jenny's eyes, +He looked her through and through: +The cunning woman's prophecies +Were clearly coming true. + +LORD PILLALOO, the Rustic's Bane +(Bad person he, and proud), +HE LAUGHED HA! HA! AT PRETTY JANE, +AND SNEERED AT HER ALOUD! + +He bade her get behind him then, +And seek her mother's stye-- +Yet to her native countrymen +She was as fair as aye! + +MACCATACOMB, continue green! +Grow, SALMON-EYE, in might, +Except for you, there might have been +The deuce's own delight + + + +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, {12} +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, +'Tis 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 + + + +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. + + + +Foonotes: + +{1} "Go with me to a Notary--seal me there +Your single bond."--Merchant of Venice, Act I., sc. 3. + +{2} "And there shall she, at Friar Lawrence' cell, +Be shrived and married."--Romeo and Juliet, Act II., sc. 4. + +{3} "And give the fasting horses provender."--Henry the Fifth, Act +IV., sc. 2. + +{4} "Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares."--Troilus and +Cressida, Act I., sc. 3. + +{5} "Then must the Jew be merciful."--Merchant of Venice, Act IV., sc. +1. + +{6} "The spring, the summer, +The chilling autumn, angry winter, change +Their wonted liveries."--Midsummer Night Dream, Act IV., sc. 1. + +{7} "In the county of Glo'ster, justice of the peace and coram." +Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I., sc. 1. + +{8} "What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?"--King John, Act V., sc. +2. + +{9} "And I'll provide his executioner."--Henry the Sixth (Second +Part), Act III., sc. 1. + +{10} "The lioness had torn some flesh away, +Which all this while had bled."--As You Like It, Act IV., sc. 3. + +{11} Described by MUNGO PARK. + +{12} "Like a bird."--Slang expression. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MORE BAB BALLADS *** + +This file should be named 3babb10.txt or 3babb10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 3babb11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 3babb10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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