The Bab Ballads, vol 2 | Page 6

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 dream,?An able mariner is he,?And gaily serves the Gen'ral SteamBoat?Navigation Companee.?I'll marry him, if he but will--?His name, I rather think, is BILL.
"I see him when he's not aware,?Upon our hospitable coast,?Reclining with an easy air?Upon the Port against a post,?A-thinking of, I'll dare to say,?His native Chelsea far away!"
"Oh, mon!" exclaimed the Customs bold,?"Mes yeux!" he said (which means "my eye")?"Oh, chere!" he also cried, I'm told,?"Par Jove," he added, with a sigh.?"Oh, mon! oh, chere! mes yeux! par Jove!?Je n'aime pas cet enticing cove!"
The Panther's captain stood hard by,?He was a man of morals strict?If e'er a sailor winked his eye,?Straightway he had that sailor licked,?Mast-headed all (such was his code)?Who dashed or jiggered, blessed or blowed.
He wept to think a tar of his?Should lean so gracefully on posts,?He sighed and sobbed to think of this,?On foreign, French, and friendly coasts.?"It's human natur', p'raps--if so,?Oh, isn't human natur' low!"
He called his BILL, who pulled his curl,?He said, "My BILL, I understand?You've captivated some young gurl?On this here French and foreign land.?Her tender heart your beauties jog--?They do, you know they do, you dog.
"You have a graceful way, I learn,?Of leaning airily on posts,?By which you've been and caused to burn?A tender flame on these here coasts.?A fisher gurl, I much regret,--?Her age, sixteen--her name, BABETTE.
"You'll marry her,