50 Bab Ballads, vol 1 | Page 9

stripling stood and smiled,?Unmoved and all undaunted.?The sombre ghost exclaimed, "Your plan?Has failed you, goblin, plainly:?Now watch yon hardy Hieland man,?So stalwart and ungainly.
"These are the men who chase the roe,?Whose footsteps never falter,?Who bring with them, where'er they go,?A smack of old SIR WALTER.?Of such as he, the men sublime?Who lead their troops victorious,?Whose deeds go down to after-time,?Enshrined in annals glorious!
"Of such as he the bard has said?'Hech thrawfu' raltie rorkie!?Wi' thecht ta' croonie clapperhead?And fash' wi' unco pawkie!'?He'll faint away when I appear,?Upon his native heather;?Or p'r'aps he'll only scream with fear,?Or p'r'aps the two together."
The spectre showed himself, alone,?To do his ghostly battling,?With curdling groan and dismal moan,?And lots of chains a-rattling!?But no--the chiel's stout Gaelic stuff?Withstood all ghostly harrying;?His fingers closed upon the snuff?Which upwards he was carrying.
For days that ghost declined to stir,?A foggy shapeless giant -?For weeks that splendid officer?Stared back again defiant.?Just as the Englishman returned?The goblin's vulgar staring,?Just so the Scotchman boldly spurned?The ghost's unmannered scaring.
For several years the ghostly twain?These Britons bold have haunted,?But all their efforts are in vain -?Their victims stand undaunted.?This very day the imp, and ghost,?Whose powers the imp derided,?Stand each at his allotted post -?The bet is undecided.
Ballad: THE PHANTOM CURATE. A FABLE.
A Bishop once--I will not name his see -?Annoyed his clergy in the mode conventional;?From pulpit shackles never set them free,?And found a sin where sin was unintentional.?All pleasures ended in abuse auricular -?The Bishop was so terribly particular.
Though, on the whole, a wise and upright man,?He sought to make of human pleasures clearances;?And form his priests on that much-lauded plan?Which pays undue attention to appearances.?He couldn't do good deeds without a psalm in 'em,?Although, in truth, he bore away the palm in 'em.
Enraged to find a deacon at a dance,?Or catch a curate at some mild frivolity,?He sought by open censure to enhance?Their dread of joining harmless social jollity.?Yet he enjoyed (a fact of notoriety)?The ordinary pleasures of society.
One evening, sitting at a pantomime?(Forbidden treat to those who stood in fear of him),?Roaring at jokes, sans metre, sense, or rhyme,?He turned, and saw immediately in rear of him,?His peace of mind upsetting, and annoying it,?A curate, also heartily enjoying it.
Again, 't was Christmas Eve, and to enhance?His children's pleasure in their harmless rollicking,?He, like a good old fellow, stood to dance;?When something checked the current of his frolicking:?That curate, with a maid he treated lover-ly,?Stood up and figured with him in the "Coverley!"
Once, yielding to an universal choice?(The company's demand was an emphatic one,?For the old Bishop had a glorious voice),?In a quartet he joined--an operatic one.?Harmless enough, though ne'er a word of grace in it,?When, lo! that curate came and took the bass in it!
One day, when passing through a quiet street,?He stopped awhile and joined a Punch's gathering;?And chuckled more than solemn folk think meet,?To see that gentleman his Judy lathering;?And heard, as Punch was being treated penalty,?That phantom curate laughing all hyaenally.
Now at a picnic, 'mid fair golden curls,?Bright eyes, straw hats, bottines that fit amazingly,?A croquet-bout is planned by all the girls;?And he, consenting, speaks of croquet praisingly;?But suddenly declines to play at all in it -?The curate fiend has come to take a ball in it!
Next, when at quiet sea-side village, freed?From cares episcopal and ties monarchical,?He grows his beard, and smokes his fragrant weed,?In manner anything but hierarchical -?He sees--and fixes an unearthly stare on it -?That curate's face, with half a yard of hair on it!
At length he gave a charge, and spake this word:?"Vicars, your curates to enjoyment urge ye may;?To check their harmless pleasuring's absurd;?What laymen do without reproach, my clergy may."?He spake, and lo! at this concluding word of him,?The curate vanished--no one since has heard of him.
Ballad: KING BORRIA BUNGALEE BOO.
KING BORRIA BUNGALEE BOO?Was a man-eating African swell;?His sigh was a hullaballoo,?His whisper a horrible yell -?A horrible, horrible yell!
Four subjects, and all of them male,?To BORRIA doubled the knee,?They were once on a far larger scale,?But he'd eaten the balance, you see?("Scale" and "balance" is punning, you see).
There was haughty PISH-TUSH-POOH-BAH,?There was lumbering DOODLE-DUM-DEY,?Despairing ALACK-A-DEY-AH,?And good little TOOTLE-TUM-TEH -?Exemplary TOOTLE-TUM-TEH.
One day there was grief in the crew,?For they hadn't a morsel of meat,?And BORRIA BUNGALEE BOO?Was dying for something to eat -?"Come, provide me with something to eat!
"ALACK-A-DEY, famished I feel;?Oh, good little TOOTLE-TUM-TEH,?Where on earth shall I look for a meal??For I haven't no dinner to-day! -?Not a morsel of dinner to-day!
"Dear TOOTLE-TUM, what shall we do??Come, get us a meal, or, in truth,?If you don't, we shall have to eat you,?Oh, adorable friend of our youth!?Thou beloved little friend of our youth!"
And he answered, "Oh, BUNGALEE BOO,?For a moment I hope you will wait, -?TIPPY-WIPPITY TOL-THE-ROL-LOO?Is the Queen of a neighbouring state -?A remarkably neighbouring state.
"TIPPY-WIPPITY TOL-THE-ROL-LOO,?She would