The Bab Ballads, vol 3 | Page 3

his own of making his lips look red-- That JOE looked quite his age--or somebody might declare?That BARNACLE'S long pig-tail was never his own own hair.
BELAYE would admit that his men were of no great use to him, "But, then," he would say, "there is little to do on a gunboat trim I can hand, and reef, and steer, and fire my big gun too--?And it IS such a treat to sail with a gentle well-bred crew."
I saw him every day. How the happy moments sped!?Reef topsails! Make all taut! There's dirty weather ahead! (I do not mean that tempests threatened the Hot Cross Bun:?In THAT case, I don't know whatever we SHOULD have done!)
After a fortnight's cruise, we put into port one day,?And off on leave for a week went kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE,?And after a long long week had passed (and it seemed like a life), LIEUTENANT BELAYE returned to his ship with a fair young wife!
He up, and he says, says he, "O crew of the Hot Cross Bun,?Here is the wife of my heart, for the Church has made us one!" And as he uttered the word, the crew went out of their wits, And all fell down in so many separate fainting-fits.
And then their hair came down, or off, as the case might be, And lo! the rest of the crew were simple girls, like me,?Who all had fled from their homes in a sailor's blue array, To follow the shifting fate of kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.

It's strange to think that _I_ should ever have loved young men, But I'm speaking of ten years past--I was barely sixty then, And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and age, I trow!?And poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes have lost their lustre now!
Ballad: The Two Ogres
Good children, list, if you're inclined,?And wicked children too--?This pretty ballad is designed?Especially for you.
Two ogres dwelt in Wickham Wold--?Each TRAITS distinctive had:?The younger was as good as gold,?The elder was as bad.
A wicked, disobedient son?Was JAMES M'ALPINE, and?A contrast to the elder one,?Good APPLEBODY BLAND.
M'ALPINE--brutes like him are few--?In greediness delights,?A melancholy victim to?Unchastened appetites.
Good, well-bred children every day?He ravenously ate,--?All boys were fish who found their way?Into M'ALPINE'S net:
Boys whose good breeding is innate,?Whose sums are always right;?And boys who don't expostulate?When sent to bed at night;
And kindly boys who never search?The nests of birds of song;?And serious boys for whom, in church,?No sermon is too long.
Contrast with JAMES'S greedy haste?And comprehensive hand,?The nice discriminating taste?Of APPLEBODY BLAND.
BLAND only eats bad boys, who swear--?Who CAN behave, but DON'T--?Disgraceful lads who say "don't care,"?And "shan't," and "can't," and "won't."
Who wet their shoes and learn to box,?And say what isn't true,?Who bite their nails and jam their frocks,?And make long noses too;
Who kick a nurse's aged shin,?And sit in sulky mopes;?And boys who twirl poor kittens in?Distracting zoetropes.
But JAMES, when he was quite a youth,?Had often been to school,?And though so bad, to tell the truth,?He wasn't quite a fool.
At logic few with him could vie;?To his peculiar sect?He could propose a fallacy?With singular effect.
So, when his Mentors said, "Expound--?Why eat good children--why?"?Upon his Mentors he would round?With this absurd reply:
"I have been taught to love the good--?The pure--the unalloyed--?And wicked boys, I've understood,?I always should avoid.
"Why do I eat good children--why??Because I love them so!"?(But this was empty sophistry,?As your Papa can show.)
Now, though the learning of his friends?Was truly not immense,?They had a way of fitting ends?By rule of common sense.
"Away, away!" his Mentors cried,?"Thou uncongenial pest!?A quirk's a thing we can't abide,?A quibble we detest!
"A fallacy in your reply?Our intellect descries,?Although we don't pretend to spy?Exactly where it lies.
"In misery and penal woes?Must end a glutton's joys;?And learn how ogres punish those?Who dare to eat good boys.
"Secured by fetter, cramp, and chain,?And gagged securely--so--?You shall be placed in Drury Lane,?Where only good lads go.
"Surrounded there by virtuous boys,?You'll suffer torture wus?Than that which constantly annoys?Disgraceful TANTALUS.
("If you would learn the woes that vex?Poor TANTALUS, down there,?Pray borrow of Papa an exPurgated?LEMPRIERE.)
"But as for BLAND who, as it seems,?Eats only naughty boys,?We've planned a recompense that teems?With gastronomic joys.
"Where wicked youths in crowds are stowed?He shall unquestioned rule,?And have the run of Hackney Road?Reformatory School!"
Ballad: Little Oliver
EARL JOYCE he was a kind old party?Whom nothing ever could put out,?Though eighty-two, he still was hearty,?Excepting as regarded gout.
He had one unexampled daughter,?The LADY MINNIE-HAHA JOYCE,?Fair MINNIE-HAHA, "Laughing Water,"?So called from her melodious voice.
By Nature planned for lover-capture,?Her beauty every heart assailed;?The good old nobleman with rapture?Observed how widely she prevailed
Aloof from all the lordly flockings?Of titled swells who worshipped her,?There stood, in pumps and cotton stockings,?One humble lover--OLIVER.
He was no peer by Fortune petted,?His name recalled no bygone age;?He was no lordling coronetted--?Alas! he was a simple page!
With vain appeals he never bored her,?But