The Bab Ballads, vol 2 | Page 5

their walls."'
With barely stifled sigh
That porter drooped his head,
With
teardrops in his eye,
"A many, sir," he said.
He stayed to hear no more,
But pushed that porter by,
And shortly
stood before
SIR HUGH DE PECKHAM RYE.
SIR HUGH he darkly frowned,
"What would you, sir, with me?"

The troubadour he downed
Upon his bended knee.
"I've come, DE PECKHAM RYE,
To do a Christian task;
You ask
me what would I?
It is not much I ask.
"Release these maidens, sir,
Whom you dominion o'er--
Particularly

her
Upon the second floor.
"And if you don't, my lord"--
He here stood bolt upright,
And
tapped a tailor's sword--
"Come out, you cad, and fight!"
SIR HUGH he called--and ran
The warden from the gate:
"Go,
show this gentleman
The maid in Forty-eight."
By many a cell they past,
And stopped at length before
A portal,
bolted fast:
The man unlocked the door.
He called inside the gate
With coarse and brutal shout,
"Come, step
it, Forty-eight!"
And Forty-eight stepped out.
"They gets it pretty hot,
The maidens what we cotch--
Two years
this lady's got
For collaring a wotch."
"Oh, ah!--indeed--I see,"
The troubadour exclaimed--
"If I may
make so free,
How is this castle named?
The warden's eyelids fill,
And sighing, he replied,
"Of gloomy
Pentonville
This is the female side!"
The minstrel did not wait
The Warden stout to thank,
But
recollected straight
He'd business at the Bank.
Ferdinando And Elvira; Or, The Gentle Pieman
PART I.
At a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supper
One whom I
will call ELVIRA, and we talked of love and TUPPER,
MR. TUPPER and the Poets, very lightly with them dealing,
For I've
always been distinguished for a strong poetic feeling.

Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto, And
she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not to.
Then she whispered, "To the ball-room we had better, dear, be walking;
If we stop down here much longer, really people will be talking."
There were noblemen in coronets, and military cousins,
There were
captains by the hundred, there were baronets by dozens.
Yet she heeded not their offers, but dismissed them with a blessing,
Then she let down all her back hair, which had taken long in dressing.
Then she had convulsive sobbings in her agitated throttle,
Then she
wiped her pretty eyes and smelt her pretty smelling-bottle.
So I whispered, "Dear ELVIRA, say,--what can the matter be with you?
Does anything you've eaten, darling POPSY, disagree with you?"
But spite of all I said, her sobs grew more and more distressing, And
she tore her pretty back hair, which had taken long in dressing.
Then she gazed upon the carpet, at the ceiling, then above me, And she
whispered, "FERDINANDO, do you really, REALLY love me?"
"Love you?" said I, then I sighed, and then I gazed upon her sweetly--
For I think I do this sort of thing particularly neatly.
"Send me to the Arctic regions, or illimitable azure,
On a scientific
goose-chase, with my COXWELL or my GLAISHER!
"Tell me whither I may hie me--tell me, dear one, that I may know-- Is
it up the highest Andes? down a horrible volcano?"
But she said, "It isn't polar bears, or hot volcanic grottoes: Only find
out who it is that writes those lovely cracker mottoes!"
PART II.

"Tell me, HENRY WADSWORTH, ALFRED POET CLOSE, or
MISTER TUPPER, Do you write the bon bon mottoes my ELVIRA
pulls at supper?"
But HENRY WADSWORTH smiled, and said he had not had that
honour; And ALFRED, too, disclaimed the words that told so much
upon her.
"MISTER MARTIN TUPPER, POET CLOSE, I beg of you inform
us;" But my question seemed to throw them both into a rage enormous.
MISTER CLOSE expressed a wish that he could only get anigh to me;
And MISTER MARTIN TUPPER sent the following reply to me:
"A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit,"-- Which I
know was very clever; but I didn't understand it.
Seven weary years I wandered--Patagonia, China, Norway,
Till at last
I sank exhausted at a pastrycook his doorway.
There were fuchsias and geraniums, and daffodils and myrtle, So I
entered, and I ordered half a basin of mock turtle.
He was plump and he was chubby, he was smooth and he was rosy,
And his little wife was pretty and particularly cosy.
And he chirped and sang, and skipped about, and laughed with laughter
hearty--
He was wonderfully active for so very stout a party.
And I said, "O gentle pieman, why so very, very merry?
Is it purity of
conscience, or your one-and-seven sherry?"
But he answered, "I'm so happy--no profession could be dearer-- If I
am not humming 'Tra! la! la!' I'm singing 'Tirer, lirer!'
"First I go and make the patties, and the puddings, and the jellies, Then
I make a sugar bird-cage, which upon a table swell is;

"Then I polish all the silver, which a supper-table