50 Bab Ballads, vol 1 | Page 2

friend arrived one day?At Spiffton-extra-Sooper,?And in this shameful way?He spoke to Mr. HOOPER:
"You think your famous name?For mildness can't be shaken,?That none can blot your fame -?But, HOOPER, you're mistaken!
"Your mind is not as blank?As that of HOPLEY PORTER,?Who holds a curate's rank?At Assesmilk-cum-Worter.
"HE plays the airy flute,?And looks depressed and blighted,?Doves round about him 'toot,'?And lambkins dance delighted.
"HE labours more than you?At worsted work, and frames it;?In old maids' albums, too,?Sticks seaweed--yes, and names it!"
The tempter said his say,?Which pierced him like a needle -?He summoned straight away?His sexton and his beadle.
(These men were men who could?Hold liberal opinions:?On Sundays they were good -?On week-days they were minions.)
"To HOPLEY PORTER go,?Your fare I will afford you -?Deal him a deadly blow,?And blessings shall reward you.
"But stay--I do not like?Undue assassination,?And so before you strike,?Make this communication:
"I'll give him this one chance -?If he'll more gaily bear him,?Play croquet, smoke, and dance,?I willingly will spare him."
They went, those minions true,?To Assesmilk-cum-Worter,?And told their errand to?The REVEREND HOPLEY PORTER.
"What?" said that reverend gent,?"Dance through my hours of leisure??Smoke?--bathe myself with scent? -?Play croquet? Oh, with pleasure!
"Wear all my hair in curl??Stand at my door and wink--so -?At every passing girl??My brothers, I should think so!
"For years I've longed for some?Excuse for this revulsion:?Now that excuse has come -?I do it on compulsion!!!"
He smoked and winked away -?This REVEREND HOPLEY PORTER -?The deuce there was to pay?At Assesmilk-cum-Worter.
And HOOPER holds his ground,?In mildness daily growing -?They think him, all around,?The mildest curate going.
Ballad: ONLY A DANCING GIRL.
Only a dancing girl,?With an unromantic style,?With borrowed colour and curl,?With fixed mechanical smile,?With many a hackneyed wile,?With ungrammatical lips,?And corns that mar her trips.
Hung from the "flies" in air,?She acts a palpable lie,?She's as little a fairy there?As unpoetical I!?I hear you asking, Why -?Why in the world I sing?This tawdry, tinselled thing?
No airy fairy she,?As she hangs in arsenic green?From a highly impossible tree?In a highly impossible scene?(Herself not over-clean).?For fays don't suffer, I'm told,?From bunions, coughs, or cold.
And stately dames that bring?Their daughters there to see,?Pronounce the "dancing thing"?No better than she should be,?With her skirt at her shameful knee,?And her painted, tainted phiz:?Ah, matron, which of us is?
(And, in sooth, it oft occurs?That while these matrons sigh,?Their dresses are lower than hers,?And sometimes half as high;?And their hair is hair they buy,?And they use their glasses, too,?In a way she'd blush to do.)
But change her gold and green?For a coarse merino gown,?And see her upon the scene?Of her home, when coaxing down?Her drunken father's frown,?In his squalid cheerless den:?She's a fairy truly, then!
Ballad: TO A LITTLE MAID--BY A POLICEMAN.
Come with me, little maid,?Nay, shrink not, thus afraid -?I'll harm thee not!?Fly not, my love, from me -?I have a home for thee -?A fairy grot,?Where mortal eye?Can rarely pry,?There shall thy dwelling be!
List to me, while I tell?The pleasures of that cell,?Oh, little maid!?What though its couch be rude,?Homely the only food?Within its shade??No thought of care?Can enter there,?No vulgar swain intrude!
Come with me, little maid,?Come to the rocky shade?I love to sing;?Live with us, maiden rare -?Come, for we "want" thee there,?Thou elfin thing,?To work thy spell,?In some cool cell?In stately Pentonville!
Ballad: THE TROUBADOUR.
A troubadour he played?Without a castle wall,?Within, a hapless maid?Responded to his call.
"Oh, willow, woe is me!?Alack and well-a-day!?If I were only free?I'd hie me far away!"
Unknown her face and name,?But this he knew right well,?The maiden's wailing came?From out a dungeon cell.
A hapless woman lay?Within that dungeon grim -?That fact, I've heard him say,?Was quite enough for him.
"I will not sit or lie,?Or eat or drink, I vow,?Till thou art free as I,?Or I as pent as thou."
Her tears then ceased to flow,?Her wails no longer rang,?And tuneful in her woe?The prisoned maiden sang:
"Oh, stranger, as you play,?I recognize your touch;?And all that I can say?Is, thank you very much."
He seized his clarion straight,?And blew thereat, until?A warden oped the gate.?"Oh, what might be your will?"
"I've come, Sir Knave, to see?The master of these halls:?A maid unwillingly?Lies prisoned in their walls."'
With barely stifled sigh?That porter drooped his head,?With teardrops in his eye,?"A many, sir," he said.
He stayed to hear no more,?But pushed that porter by,?And shortly stood before?SIR HUGH DE PECKHAM RYE.
SIR HUGH he darkly frowned,?"What would you, sir, with me?"?The troubadour he downed?Upon his bended knee.
"I've come, DE PECKHAM RYE,?To do a Christian task;?You ask me what would I??It is not much I ask.
"Release these maidens, sir,?Whom you dominion o'er -?Particularly her?Upon the second floor.
"And if you don't, my lord" -?He here stood bolt upright,?And tapped a tailor's sword -?"Come out, you cad, and fight!"
SIR HUGH he called--and ran?The warden from the gate:?"Go, show this gentleman?The maid in Forty-eight."
By many a cell they past,?And stopped at length before?A portal, bolted fast:?The man unlocked the door.
He called