The Bab Ballads, vol 3 | Page 2

chops,
And chocolate, and
arrowroot, and buns, and malt and hops.
Kind Clergymen, besides, grew interested in his fate,
Affected by the
details of his pitiable state.
They waited on the Secretary, somewhere
in Whitehall,
Who said he would receive them any day they liked to
call.
"Consider, sir, the hardship of this interesting case:
A prison life
brings with it something very like disgrace;
It's telling on young
WILLIAM, who's reduced to skin and bone-- Remember he's a
gentleman, with money of his own.
"He had an ample income, and of course he stands in need
Of sherry
with his dinner, and his customary weed;
No delicacies now can pass

his gentlemanly lips--
He misses his sea-bathing and his continental
trips.
"He says the other prisoners are commonplace and rude;
He says he
cannot relish uncongenial prison food.
When quite a boy they taught
him to distinguish Good from Bad, And other educational advantages
he's had.
"A burglar or garotter, or, indeed, a common thief
Is very glad to
batten on potatoes and on beef,
Or anything, in short, that prison
kitchens can afford,--
A cut above the diet in a common workhouse
ward.
"But beef and mutton-broth don't seem to suit our WILLIAM'S whim,
A boon to other prisoners--a punishment to him.
It never was
intended that the discipline of gaol
Should dash a convict's spirits, sir,
or make him thin or pale."
"Good Gracious Me!" that sympathetic Secretary cried,
"Suppose in
prison fetters MISTER WILLIAM should have died! Dear me, of
course! Imprisonment for LIFE his sentence saith: I'm very glad you
mentioned it--it might have been For Death!
"Release him with a ticket--he'll be better then, no doubt, And tell him I
apologize." So MISTER WILLIAM'S out.
I hope he will be careful in
his manuscripts, I'm sure,
And not begin experimentalizing any more.
Ballad: The Bumboat Woman's Story
I'm old, my dears, and shrivelled with age, and work, and grief, My
eyes are gone, and my teeth have been drawn by Time, the Thief! For
terrible sights I've seen, and dangers great I've run-- I'm nearly seventy
now, and my work is almost done!
Ah! I've been young in my time, and I've played the deuce with men!
I'm speaking of ten years past--I was barely sixty then:
My cheeks
were mellow and soft, and my eyes were large and sweet, POLL

PINEAPPLE'S eyes were the standing toast of the Royal Fleet!
A bumboat woman was I, and I faithfully served the ships
With
apples and cakes, and fowls, and beer, and halfpenny dips, And beef for
the generous mess, where the officers dine at nights, And fine fresh
peppermint drops for the rollicking midshipmites.
Of all the kind commanders who anchored in Portsmouth Bay,
By far
the sweetest of all was kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.'

LIEUTENANT BELAYE commanded the gunboat Hot Cross Bun,

She was seven and thirty feet in length, and she carried a gun.
With a laudable view of enhancing his country's naval pride, When
people inquired her size, LIEUTENANT BELAYE replied,
"Oh, my
ship, my ship is the first of the Hundred and Seventy-ones!" Which
meant her tonnage, but people imagined it meant her guns.
Whenever I went on board he would beckon me down below,
"Come
down, Little Buttercup, come" (for he loved to call me so), And he'd
tell of the fights at sea in which he'd taken a part, And so
LIEUTENANT BELAYE won poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S heart!
But at length his orders came, and he said one day, said he, "I'm
ordered to sail with the Hot Cross Bun to the German Sea." And the
Portsmouth maidens wept when they learnt the evil day, For every
Portsmouth maid loved good LIEUTENANT BELAYE.
And I went to a back back street, with plenty of cheap cheap shops,
And I bought an oilskin hat and a second-hand suit of slops, And I went
to LIEUTENANT BELAYE (and he never suspected ME!) And I
entered myself as a chap as wanted to go to sea.
We sailed that afternoon at the mystic hour of one,--
Remarkably nice
young men were the crew of the Hot Cross Bun, I'm sorry to say that
I've heard that sailors sometimes swear, But I never yet heard a BUN
say anything wrong, I declare.

When Jack Tars meet, they meet with a "Messmate, ho! What cheer?"
But here, on the Hot Cross Bun, it was "How do you do, my dear?"
When Jack Tars growl, I believe they growl with a big big DBut the
strongest oath of the Hot Cross Buns was a mild "Dear me!"
Yet, though they were all well-bred, you could scarcely call them slick:

Whenever a sea was on, they were all extremely sick;
And
whenever the weather was calm, and the wind was light and fair, They
spent more time than a sailor should on his back back hair.
They certainly shivered and shook when ordered aloft to run, And they