The Bab Ballads, vol 2 | Page 6

lacquers; Then I
write the pretty mottoes which you find inside the crackers."--
"Found at last!" I madly shouted. "Gentle pieman, you astound me!"
Then I waved the turtle soup enthusiastically round me.
And I shouted and I danced until he'd quite a crowd around him-- And I
rushed away exclaiming, "I have found him! I have found him!"
And I heard the gentle pieman in the road behind me trilling, "'Tira,
lira!' stop him, stop him! 'Tra! la! la!' the soup's a shilling!"
But until I reached ELVIRA'S home, I never, never waited,
And
ELVIRA to her FERDINAND'S irrevocably mated!
Lorenzo De Lardy
DALILAH DE DARDY adored
The very correctest of cards,

LORENZO DE LARDY, a lord--
He was one of Her Majesty's
Guards.
DALILAH DE DARDY was fat,
DALILAH DE DARDY was old--

(No doubt in the world about that)
But DALILAH DE DARDY
had gold.
LORENZO DE LARDY was tall,
The flower of maidenly pets,

Young ladies would love at his call,
But LORENZO DE LARDY had
debts.
His money-position was queer,
And one of his favourite freaks
Was
to hide himself three times a year,
In Paris, for several weeks.
Many days didn't pass him before
He fanned himself into a flame,

For a beautiful "DAM DU COMPTWORE,"
And this was her
singular name:
ALICE EULALIE CORALINE
EUPHROSINE COLOMBINA

THERESE
JULIETTE STEPHANIE CELESTINE

CHARLOTTE RUSSE DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE.
She booked all the orders and tin,
Accoutred in showy fal-lal,
At a
two-fifty Restaurant, in
The glittering Palais Royal.
He'd gaze in her orbit of blue,
Her hand he would tenderly squeeze,

But the words of her tongue that he knew
Were limited strictly to
these:
"CORALINE CELESTINE EULALIE,
Houp la! Je vous aime, oui,
mossoo,
Combien donnez moi aujourd'hui
Bonjour, Mademoiselle,
parlez voo."
MADEMOISELLE DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE
Was a witty
and beautiful miss,
Extremely correct in her ways,
But her English
consisted of this:
"Oh my! pretty man, if you please,
Blom boodin, biftek, currie lamb,

Bouldogue, two franc half, quite ze cheese,
Rosbif, me spik
Angleesh, godam."
A waiter, for seasons before,
Had basked in her beautiful gaze,
And
burnt to dismember MILOR,
HE LOVED DE LA SAUCE
MAYONNAISE.
He said to her, "Mechante THERESE,
Avec desespoir tu m'accables.

Penses-tu, DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE,
Ses intentions sont
honorables?
"Flirtez toujours, ma belle, si tu oses--
Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chere,

Je lui dirai de quoi l'on compose
Vol au vent a la Financiere!"
LORD LARDY knew nothing of this--
The waiter's devotion ignored,

But he gazed on the beautiful miss,
And never seemed weary or
bored.

The waiter would screw up his nerve,
His fingers he'd snap and he'd
dance--
And LORD LARDY would smile and observe,
"How
strange are the customs of France!"
Well, after delaying a space,
His tradesmen no longer would wait:

Returning to England apace,
He yielded himself to his fate.
LORD LARDY espoused, with a groan,
MISS DARDY'S developing
charms,
And agreed to tag on to his own,
Her name and her
newly-found arms.
The waiter he knelt at the toes
Of an ugly and thin coryphee,
Who
danced in the hindermost rows
At the Theatre des Varietes.
MADEMOISELLE DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE
Didn't yield
to a gnawing despair
But married a soldier, and plays
As a pretty
and pert Vivandiere.
Disillusioned--By An Ex-Enthusiast
Oh, that my soul its gods could see
As years ago they seemed to me

When first I painted them;
Invested with the circumstance
Of old
conventional romance:
Exploded theorem!
The bard who could, all men above,
Inflame my soul with songs of
love,
And, with his verse, inspire
The craven soul who feared to die

With all the glow of chivalry
And old heroic fire;
I found him in a beerhouse tap
Awaking from a gin-born nap,
With
pipe and sloven dress;
Amusing chums, who fooled his bent,
With
muddy, maudlin sentiment,
And tipsy foolishness!
The novelist, whose painting pen
To legions of fictitious men
A
real existence lends,
Brain-people whom we rarely fail,
Whene'er
we hear their names, to hail
As old and welcome friends;

I found in clumsy snuffy suit,
In seedy glove, and blucher boot,

Uncomfortably big.
Particularly commonplace,
With vulgar, coarse,
stockbroking face,
And spectacles and wig.
My favourite actor who, at will,
With mimic woe my eyes could fill

With unaccustomed brine:
A being who appeared to me
(Before I
knew him well) to be
A song incarnadine;
I found a coarse unpleasant man
With speckled chin--unhealthy,
wan--
Of self-importance full:
Existing in an atmosphere
That
reeked of gin and pipes and beer--
Conceited, fractious, dull.
The warrior whose ennobled name
Is woven with his country's fame,

Triumphant over all,
I found weak, palsied, bloated, blear;
His
province seemed to be, to leer
At bonnets in Pall Mall.
Would that ye always shone, who write,
Bathed in your own innate
limelight,
And ye who battles wage,
Or that in darkness I had died

Before my soul had ever sighed
To see you off the stage!
Babette's Love
BABETTE she was a fisher gal,
With jupon striped and cap in crimps.

She passed her days inside the Halle,
Or catching little nimble
shrimps.
Yet she was sweet as flowers in May,
With no
professional bouquet.
JACOT was, of the Customs bold,
An officer, at gay Boulogne,
He
loved BABETTE--his love he told,
And sighed, "Oh, soyez vous my
own!"
But "Non!" said she, "JACOT, my pet,
Vous etes trop
scraggy pour BABETTE.
"Of one alone I nightly