"Decide!" quoth they, "let him be named,
Who
henceforth as his wife may rank you."
"I've changed my views," the
maiden said,
"I only marry curates, thank you!"
Says FREDDY, "Here is goings on!
To bust myself with rage I'm ready."
"I'll be a curate!" whispers JOHN -
"And I," exclaimed
poetic FREDDY.
But while they read for it, these chaps,
The curate booked the
maiden bonny -
And when she's buried him, perhaps,
She'll marry FREDERICK or JOHNNY.
Ballad: Sir Guy The Crusader
Sir GUY was a doughty crusader,
A
muscular knight,
Ever ready to fight,
A very determined invader,
And DICKEY DE LION'S delight.
LENORE was a Saracen
maiden,
Brunette, statuesque,
The
reverse of grotesque,
Her pa was a bagman from Aden,
Her mother she played in burlesque.
A CORYPHEE, pretty and loyal,
In amber and red
The ballet she led;
Her mother performed at the Royal,
LENORE at the Saracen's Head.
Of face and of figure majestic,
She dazzled the cits -
Ecstaticised pits; -
Her troubles were only domestic,
But drove her half out of her wits.
Her father
incessantly lashed her,
On water and bread
She was grudgingly fed;
Whenever her father he thrashed her
Her mother sat down on her head.
GUY saw her, and loved her, with reason,
For beauty so bright
Sent him mad with delight;
He purchased a stall for the season,
And sat in it every night.
His views were
exceedingly proper,
He wanted to wed,
So he called at her shed
And saw her progenitor whop her -
Her mother sit down on her head.
"So pretty," said he, "and so trusting!
You brute of a dad,
You unprincipled cad,
Your conduct is really disgusting,
Come, come, now admit it's too bad!
"You're a
turbaned old Turk, and
malignant -
Your daughter LENORE
I
intensely adore,
And I cannot help feeling indignant,
A fact that I hinted before;
"To see a fond father employing
A deuce of a knout
For to bang her about,
To a
sensitive lover's annoying."
Said the bagman, "Crusader, get out."
Says GUY, "Shall a
warrior laden
With a big spiky knob,
Sit in peace on his cob
While a beautiful Saracen
maidenIs whipped by a Saracen snob?
"To London I'll go from my charmer."
Which he did, with his loot
(Seven hats and a flute),
And was nabbed for his Sydenham armour
At MR. BEN-SAMUEL'S suit.
SIR GUY he was lodged in the Compter,
Her pa, in a rage,
Died (don't know his age),
His daughter, she married the prompter,
Grew bulky and quitted the stage.
Ballad: Haunted
Haunted? Ay, in a social way
By a body of ghosts in dread array;
But no
conventional spectres they -
Appalling, grim, and tricky:
I quail at mine as I'd never quail
At a fine
traditional spectre pale,
With a
turnip head and a
ghostly wail,
And a
splash of blood on the dickey!
Mine are
horrible, social ghosts, -
Speeches and women and guests and hosts,
Weddings and morning calls and toasts,
In every bad variety:
Ghosts who hover about the grave
Of all that's manly, free, and brave:
You'll find their names on the architrave
Of that charnel-house, Society.
Black Monday - black as its school-room ink -
With its
dismal boys that snivel and think
Of its nauseous messes to eat and drink,
And its
frozen tank to wash in.
That was the first that brought me grief,
And made me weep, till I sought relief
In an emblematical handkerchief,
To choke such baby bosh in.
First and worst in the grim array-
Ghosts of ghosts that have gone their way,
Which I wouldn't
revive for a single day
For all the
wealth of PLUTUS -
Are the
horrible ghosts that school-days scared:
If the
classical ghost that BRUTUS dared
Was the ghost of his "Caesar" unprepared,
I'm sure I pity BRUTUS.
I pass to
critical seventeen;
The ghost of that terrible
wedding scene,
When an
elderly Colonel stole my Queen,
And woke my dream of heaven.
No
schoolgirl decked in her nurse-room curls
Was my gushing
innocent Queen of Pearls;
If she wasn't a girl of a thousand girls,
She was one of forty-seven!
I see the ghost of my first cigar,
Of the thence-arising family jar -
Of my
maiden brief (I was at the Bar,
And I called the Judge "Your wushup!")
Of
reckless days and
reckless nights,
With wrenched-off knockers, extinguished lights,
Unholy songs and tipsy fights,
Which I
strove in vain to hush up.
Ghosts of fraudulent joint-stock banks,
Ghosts of "copy, declined with thanks,"
Of novels returned in endless ranks,
And thousands more, I suffer.
The only line to fitly grace
My
humble tomb, when I've run my race,
Is, "Reader, this is the resting-place
Of an
unsuccessful duffer."
I've fought them all, these ghosts of mine,
But the weapons I've used are sighs and brine,
And now that I'm nearly forty-nine,
Old age is my chiefest bogy;
For my hair is thinning away at the crown,
And the silver fights with the worn-out brown;
And a general
verdict sets me down
As an irreclaimable fogy.
Ballad: The Bishop And The 'Busman
It was a Bishop bold,
And London was his see,
He was short and stout and round about
And
zealous as could be.
It also was a Jew,
Who drove a Putney 'bus -
For flesh of swine however fine
He did not care a cuss.
His name was HASH BAZ BEN,
And JEDEDIAH too,
And SOLOMON and ZABULON -
This 'bus-directing Jew.
The Bishop said, said he,
"I'll see what I can do
To Christianise and make you wise,
You poor benighted Jew."
So every
blessed day
That 'bus he rode outside,
From Fulham town, both up and down,
And loudly thus he cried:
"His name is HASH BAZ BEN,
And JEDEDIAH too,
And SOLOMON and ZABULON -
This 'bus-directing Jew."
At first the 'busman smiled,
And rather liked the fun -
He merely smiled, that Hebrew child,
And said, "Eccentric one!"
And gay young dogs would wait
To see the 'bus go by
(These gay young dogs, in
striking togs),
To hear the Bishop cry:
"Observe his grisly beard,
His race it clearly shows,
He sticks no fork in ham or pork -
Observe, my friends, his nose.
"His name is HASH BAZ BEN,
And JEDEDIAH too,
And SOLOMON and ZABULON -
This 'bus-directing Jew."
But though at first amused,
Yet after seven years,
This Hebrew child got rather riled,
And melted into tears.
He really almost feared
To leave his poor abode,
His nose, and name, and beard became
A byword on that road.
At length he swore an oath,
The reason he would know -
"I'll call and see why ever he
Does
persecute me so!"
The good old Bishop sat
On his
ancestral chair,
The 'busman came, sent up his name,
And laid his
grievance bare.
"Benighted Jew," he said