The Bab Ballads, vol 2 | Page 4

PLUTUS--?Are the horrible ghosts that school-days scared:?If the classical ghost that BRUTUS dared?Was the ghost of his "Caesar" unprepared,?I'm sure I pity BRUTUS.
I pass to critical seventeen;?The ghost of that terrible wedding scene,?When an elderly Colonel stole my Queen,?And woke my dream of heaven.?No schoolgirl decked in her nurse-room curls?Was my gushing innocent Queen of Pearls;?If she wasn't a girl of a thousand girls,?She was one of forty-seven!
I see the ghost of my first cigar,?Of the thence-arising family jar--?Of my maiden brief (I was at the Bar,?And I called the Judge "Your wushup!")?Of reckless days and reckless nights,?With wrenched-off knockers, extinguished lights,?Unholy songs and tipsy fights,?Which I strove in vain to hush up.
Ghosts of fraudulent joint-stock banks,?Ghosts of "copy, declined with thanks,"?Of novels returned in endless ranks,?And thousands more, I suffer.?The only line to fitly grace?My humble tomb, when I've run my race,?Is, "Reader, this is the resting-place?Of an unsuccessful duffer."
I've fought them all, these ghosts of mine,?But the weapons I've used are sighs and brine,?And now that I'm nearly forty-nine,?Old age is my chiefest bogy;?For my hair is thinning away at the crown,?And the silver fights with the worn-out brown;?And a general verdict sets me down?As an irreclaimable fogy.
The Bishop And The 'Busman
It was a Bishop bold,?And London was his see,?He was short and stout and round about?And zealous as could be.
It also was a Jew,?Who drove a Putney 'bus--?For flesh of swine however fine?He did not care a cuss.
His name was HASH BAZ BEN,?And JEDEDIAH too,?And SOLOMON and ZABULON--?This 'bus-directing Jew.
The Bishop said, said he,?"I'll see what I can do?To Christianise and make you wise,?You poor benighted Jew."
So every blessed day?That 'bus he rode outside,?From Fulham town, both up and down,?And loudly thus he cried:
"His name is HASH BAZ BEN,?And JEDEDIAH too,?And SOLOMON and ZABULON--?This 'bus-directing Jew."
At first the 'busman smiled,?And rather liked the fun--?He merely smiled, that Hebrew child,?And said, "Eccentric one!"
And gay young dogs would wait?To see the 'bus go by?(These gay young dogs, in striking togs),?To hear the Bishop cry:
"Observe his grisly beard,?His race it clearly shows,?He sticks no fork in ham or pork--?Observe, my friends, his nose.
"His name is HASH BAZ BEN,?And JEDEDIAH too,?And SOLOMON and ZABULON--?This 'bus-directing Jew."
But though at first amused,?Yet after seven years,?This Hebrew child got rather riled,?And melted into tears.
He really almost feared?To leave his poor abode,?His nose, and name, and beard became?A byword on that road.
At length he swore an oath,?The reason he would know--?"I'll call and see why ever he?Does persecute me so!"
The good old Bishop sat?On his ancestral chair,?The 'busman came, sent up his name,?And laid his grievance bare.
"Benighted Jew," he said?(The good old Bishop did),?"Be Christian, you, instead of Jew--?Become a Christian kid!
"I'll ne'er annoy you more."?"Indeed?" replied the Jew;?"Shall I be freed?" "You will, indeed!"?Then "Done!" said he, "with you!"
The organ which, in man,?Between the eyebrows grows,?Fell from his face, and in its place?He found a Christian nose.
His tangled Hebrew beard,?Which to his waist came down,?Was now a pair of whiskers fair--?His name ADOLPHUS BROWN!
He wedded in a year?That prelate's daughter JANE,?He's grown quite fair--has auburn hair--?His wife is far from plain.
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 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