The Bab Ballads, vol 3 | Page 4

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 stood in silent sorrow by--

He knew how fondly he adored her,
And knew, alas! how
hopelessly!
Well grounded by a village tutor
In languages alive and past,
He'd
say unto himself, "Knee-suitor,
Oh, do not go beyond your last!"
But though his name could boast no handle,
He could not every hope
resign;
As moths will hover round a candle,
So hovered he about
her shrine.
The brilliant candle dazed the moth well:
One day she sang to her
Papa
The air that MARIE sings with BOTHWELL
In
NEIDERMEYER'S opera.
(Therein a stable boy, it's stated,
Devoutly loved a noble dame,

Who ardently reciprocated
His rather injudicious flame.)
And then, before the piano closing
(He listened coyly at the door),

She sang a song of her composing--
I give one verse from half a
score:
BALLAD
Why, pretty page, art ever sighing?
Is sorrow in thy heartlet lying?

Come, set a-ringing
Thy laugh entrancing,
And ever singing
And
ever dancing.
Ever singing, Tra! la! la!
Ever dancing, Tra! la! la!

Ever singing, ever dancing,
Ever singing, Tra! la! la!
He skipped for joy like little muttons,
He danced like Esmeralda's kid.

(She did not mean a boy in buttons,
Although he fancied that she

did.)
Poor lad! convinced he thus would win her,
He wore out many pairs
of soles;
He danced when taking down the dinner--
He danced
when bringing up the coals.
He danced and sang (however laden)
With his incessant "Tra! la! la!"

Which much surprised the noble maiden,
And puzzled even her
Papa.
He nourished now his flame and fanned it,
He even danced at work
below.
The upper servants wouldn't stand it,
And BOWLES the
butler told him so.
At length on impulse acting blindly,
His love he laid completely bare;

The gentle Earl received him kindly
And told the lad to take a
chair.
"Oh, sir," the suitor uttered sadly,
"Don't give your indignation vent;

I fear you think I'm acting madly,
Perhaps you think me insolent?"
The kindly Earl repelled the notion;
His noble bosom heaved a sigh,

His fingers trembled with emotion,
A tear stood in his mild blue
eye:
For, oh! the scene recalled too plainly
The half-forgotten time when
he,
A boy of nine, had worshipped vainly
A governess of
forty-three!
"My boy," he said, in tone consoling,
"Give up this idle fancy--do--

The song you heard my daughter trolling
Did not, indeed, refer to
you.
"I feel for you, poor boy, acutely;
I would not wish to give you pain;

Your pangs I estimate minutely,--
I, too, have loved, and loved in
vain.

"But still your humble rank and station
For MINNIE surely are not
meet"--
He said much more in conversation
Which it were needless
to repeat.
Now I'm prepared to bet a guinea,
Were this a mere dramatic case,

The page would have eloped with MINNIE,
But, no--he only left his
place.
The simple Truth is my detective,
With me Sensation can't abide;

The Likely beats the mere Effective,
And Nature is my only guide.
Ballad: Pasha Bailey Ben
A proud Pasha was BAILEY BEN,
His wives were three, his tails
were ten;
His form was dignified, but stout,
Men called him "Little
Roundabout."
His Importance
Pale Pilgrims came from o'er the sea
To wait on PASHA BAILEY B.,

All bearing presents in a crowd,
For B. was poor as well as proud.
His Presents
They brought him onions strung on ropes,
And cold boiled beef, and
telescopes,
And balls of string, and shrimps, and guns,
And chops,
and tacks, and hats, and buns.
More of them
They brought him white kid gloves, and pails,
And candlesticks, and
potted quails,
And capstan-bars, and scales and weights,
And
ornaments for empty grates.
Why I mention these
My tale is not of these--oh no!
I only mention them to show
The

divers gifts that divers men
Brought o'er the sea to BAILEY BEN.
His Confidant
A confidant had BAILEY B.,
A gay Mongolian dog was he;
I am
not good at Turkish names,
And so I call him SIMPLE JAMES.
His Confidant's Countenance
A dreadful legend you might trace
In SIMPLE JAMES'S honest face,

For there you read, in Nature's print,
"A Scoundrel of the Deepest
Tint."
His Character
A deed of blood, or fire, or flames,
Was meat and drink to SIMPLE
JAMES:
To hide his guilt he did not plan,
But owned himself a bad
young man.
The Author to his Reader
And why on earth good BAILEY BEN
(The wisest, noblest, best of
men)
Made SIMPLE JAMES his right-hand man
Is quite beyond
my mental span.
The same, continued
But there--enough of gruesome deeds!
My heart, in thinking of them,
bleeds;
And so let SIMPLE JAMES take wing,--
'Tis not of him I'm
going to sing.
The Pasha's Clerk
Good PASHA BAILEY kept a clerk
(For BAILEY only made his