THE ONION GIRL
(After Tennyson’s “Lady of Shalotte.”)
PART I.
On either side of Market-street
Small stalls of vegetables meet
Domestic eyes; and voices sweet
And voices hoarse their hearing greet
With cries of “Buy my fine shalots!”
And up and down the million goes;
Gazing where, in varied rows,
Green stuff lies, and each nose knows
The odour of shalots.
Widows cheapen, urchins chatter,
Little vagrants make much clatter;
Vulgar boys cry, “Who’s your hatter?”
And this time, the night of Satur-
Day’s the joy of all the sots.
Bright blue eyes, lips like the cherry,
Rosy cheeks, that ringlets bury,
Had an Irish girl, from Derry,
A girl who sold shalots!
To the market, peas and beans
Heavy lumbering machines
Bring thrice a week, also greens;
And ’tis prime fun to watch the scenes
At the biddings for the lots.
But who hath seen her buy her stock
Of onions, or white-headed broc-
Oli, before four of the clock,
That girl who sells shalots?
Only peelers, walking early
(One there is a great, big, burly
Fellow, who is always surly,
And wouldn’t even let a cur lie
Down in shelter’d corner spots);
Or, by the dawn, some loose young city
Clerk, home reeling, hears the ditty
She oft sings—says “’Tis that pretty
Girl who sells shalots!”