The Bab Ballads, vol 2 | Page 2

widowed Ma of CAPTAIN REECE,?Attended there as they were bid;?It was their duty, and they did.
The Rival Curates
List while the poet trolls?Of MR. CLAYTON HOOPER,?Who had a cure of souls?At Spiffton-extra-Sooper.
He lived on curds and whey,?And daily sang their praises,?And then he'd go and play?With buttercups and daisies.
Wild croquet HOOPER banned,?And all the sports of Mammon,?He warred with cribbage, and?He exorcised backgammon.
His helmet was a glance?That spoke of holy gladness;?A saintly smile his lance;?His shield a tear of sadness.
His Vicar smiled to see?This armour on him buckled:?With pardonable glee?He blessed himself and chuckled.
"In mildness to abound?My curate's sole design is;?In all the country round?There's none so mild as mine is!"
And HOOPER, disinclined?His trumpet to be blowing,?Yet didn't think you'd find?A milder curate going.
A 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.
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!
General John
The bravest names for fire and flames?And all that mortal durst,?Were GENERAL JOHN and PRIVATE JAMES,?Of the Sixty-seventy-first.
GENERAL JOHN was a soldier tried,?A chief of warlike dons;?A haughty stride and a withering pride?Were MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN'S.
A sneer would play on his martial phiz,?Superior birth to show;?"Pish!" was a favourite word of his,?And he often said "Ho! ho!"
FULL-PRIVATE JAMES described might be,?As a man of a mournful mind;?No characteristic trait had he?Of any distinctive kind.
From the ranks, one day, cried PRIVATE JAMES,?"Oh! MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN,?I've doubts of our respective names,?My mournful mind upon.
"A glimmering thought occurs to me?(Its source I can't unearth),?But I've a kind of a notion we?Were cruelly changed at birth.
"I've a strange idea that each other's names?We've each of us here got on.?Such things have been," said PRIVATE JAMES.?"They have!" sneered GENERAL JOHN.
"My GENERAL JOHN, I swear upon?My oath I think 'tis so--"?"Pish!" proudly sneered his GENERAL JOHN,?And he also said "Ho! ho!"
"My GENERAL JOHN! my GENERAL JOHN!?My GENERAL JOHN!" quoth he,?"This aristocratical sneer upon?Your face I blush to see!
"No truly great or generous cove?Deserving of them names,?Would sneer at a fixed idea that's drove?In the mind of a PRIVATE JAMES!"
Said GENERAL JOHN, "Upon your claims?No need your breath to waste;?If this is a joke, FULL-PRIVATE JAMES,?It's a joke of doubtful taste.
"But, being a man of doubtless worth,?If you feel certain quite?That we were probably changed at birth,?I'll venture to say you're right."
So GENERAL JOHN as PRIVATE JAMES?Fell in, parade upon;?And PRIVATE JAMES, by change of names,?Was MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN.
To A Little Maid--By A Policeman
Come with me, little maid,?Nay, shrink