PART II
"Tell me, Henry Wadsworth, Alfred, Poet Close, or Mister Tupper,
Do you write the bonbon mottoes my Elvira pulls at supper?"
But Henry Wadsworth smiled, and said he had not had that honour;
And Alfred, too, disclaimed the words that told so much upon her.
"Mister Martin Tupper, Poet Close, I beg of you inform us";
But my question seemed to throw them both into a rage enormous.
Mister Close expressed a wish that he could only get anigh to me.
And Mister Martin Tupper sent the following reply to me:—
"A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit."
Which I think must have been clever, for I didn't understand it.
Seven weary years I wandered—Patagonia, China, Norway,
Till at last I sank exhausted at a pastrycook his doorway.
There were fuchsias and geraniums, and daffodils and myrtle,
So I entered, and I ordered half a basin of mock turtle.
He was plump and he was chubby, he was smooth and he was rosy,
And his little wife was pretty, and particularly cosy.
And he chirped and sang, and skipped about, and laughed with laughter hearty—
He was wonderfully active for so very stout a party.
And I said, "Oh, gentle pieman, why so very, very merry?
Is it purity of conscience, or your one-and-seven sherry?"
But he answered, "I'm so happy—no profession could be dearer—
If I am not humming 'Tra! la! la!' I'm singing, 'Tirer, lirer!'
"First I go and make the patties, and the puddings and the jellies,
Then I make a sugar birdcage, which upon a table swell is;
"Then I polish all the silver, which a supper-table lacquers;
Then I write the pretty mottoes which you find inside the crackers"—
"Found at last!" I madly shouted. "Gentle pieman, you astound me!"
Then I waved the turtle soup enthusiastically round me.
And I shouted and I danced until he'd quite a crowd around him—
And I rushed away, exclaiming, "I have found him! I have found him!"
And I heard the gentle pieman in the road behind me trilling,
"'Tira! lira!' stop him, stop him! 'Tra! la! la!' the soup's a shilling!"
But until I reached Elvira's home, I never, never waited,
And Elvira to her Ferdinand's irrevocably mated!
[THE POLICEMAN'S LOT]
When a felon's not engaged in his employment,
Or maturing his felonious little plans,
His capacity for innocent enjoyment
Is just as great as any honest man's.
Our feelings we with difficulty smother
When constabulary duty's to be done:
Ah, take one consideration with another,
A policeman's lot is not a happy one!
When the enterprising burglar isn't burgling,
When the cut-throat isn't occupied in crime,
He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling,
And listen to the merry village chime.
When the coster's finished jumping on his mother,
He loves to lie a-basking in the sun:
Ah, take one consideration with another,
The policeman's lot is not a happy one!
[LORENZO DE LARDY]
Dalilah de Dardy adored
The very correctest of cards,
Lorenzo de Lardy, a lord—
He was one of Her Majesty's Guards.
Dalilah de Dardy was fat,
Dalilah de Dardy was old—
(No doubt in the world about that)
But Dalilah de Dardy had gold.
Lorenzo de Lardy was tall,
The flower of maidenly pets,
Young ladies would love at his call,
But Lorenzo de Lardy had debts.
His money-position was queer,
And one of his favourite freaks
Was to hide himself three times a year,
In Paris, for several weeks.
Many days didn't pass him before
He fanned himself into a flame,
For a beautiful "Dam du Comptwore,"
And this was her singular name:
Alice Eulalie Coraline
Euphrosine Colombina Thérèse
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 là! 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, "Méchante Thérèse,
Avec désespoir tu m'accables.
Penses-tu, de la Sauce Mayonnaise,
Ses intentions sont honorables?
"Flirte toujours, ma belle, si tu oses—
Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère,
Je lui dirai de quoi l'on compose
Vol au vent à la Financière!"
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 coryphée,
Who danced in the hindermost rows
At the Théâtre des Variétés.
Mademoiselle de la Sauce Mayonnaise
Didn't yield to a gnawing despair
But married a soldier, and plays
As a pretty and pert Vivandière.
[THE BAFFLED GRUMBLER]
Whene'er I poke
Sarcastic joke
Replete with malice spiteful,
The people vile
Politely smile
And vote me quite delightful!
Now, when a wight
Sits up all night
Ill-natured jokes devising,
And all his wiles
Are met with smiles,
It's hard, there's no disguising!
Oh, don't the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and nothing goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!
When German bands
From music stands
Play Wagner imperfectly—
I bid them go—
They don't say no,
But off they trot directly!
The organ boys
They stop their noise
With readiness surprising,
And grinning herds
Of hurdy-gurds
Retire apologising!
Oh, don't the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and nothing goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!
I've offered gold,
In sums untold,
To all who'd contradict me—
I've said I'd pay
A pound a day
To any one who kicked me—
I've bribed with toys
Great vulgar boys
To utter something spiteful,
But, bless you, no!
They will be so
Confoundedly politeful!
In short, these aggravating lads,
They tickle my tastes, they feed my fads,
They give me this and they give me that,
And I've nothing whatever to grumble at!
[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!
[THE HOUSE OF PEERS]
When Britain really ruled the waves—
(In good Queen Bess's time)
The House of Peers made no pretence
To intellectual eminence,
Or scholarship sublime;
Yet Britain won her proudest bays
In good Queen Bess's glorious days!
When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
As every child can tell,
The House of Peers, throughout the war,
Did nothing in particular,
And did it very well;
Yet Britain set the world ablaze
In good King George's glorious days!
And while the House of Peers withholds
Its legislative hand,
And noble statesmen do not itch
To interfere with matters which
They do not understand,
As bright will shine Great Britain's rays,
As in King George's glorious days!
[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 êtes trop scraggy pour Babette.
"Of one alone I nightly dream,
An able mariner is he,
And gaily serves the Gen'ral Steam-
Boat 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, chère!" he also cried, I'm told,
"Par Jove," he added, with a sigh.
"Oh, mon! oh, chère! 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, you gentle tar—
Your union I myself will bless,
And when you matrimonied are,
I will appoint her stewardess."
But William hitched himself and sighed,
And cleared his throat, and thus replied:
"Not so: unless you're fond of strife,
You'd better mind your own affairs,
I have an able-bodied wife
Awaiting me at Wapping Stairs;
If all this here to her I tell,
She'll larrup you and me as well.
"Skin-deep, and valued at a pin,
Is beauty such as Venus owns—
Her beauty is beneath her skin,
And lies in layers on her bones.
The other sailors of the crew
They always calls her 'Whopping Sue!'"
"Oho!" the Captain said, "I see!
And is she then so very strong?"
"She'd take your honour's scruff," said he,
"And pitch you over to Bolong!"
"I pardon you," the Captain said,
"The fair Babette you needn't wed."
Perhaps the Customs had his will,
And coaxed the scornful girl to wed,
Perhaps the Captain and his Bill,
And William's little wife are dead;
Or p'raps they're all alive and well:
I cannot, cannot, cannot tell.
[A MERRY MADRIGAL]
Brightly dawns our wedding day;
Joyous hour, we give thee greeting!
Whither, whither art thou fleeting?
Fickle moment, prithee stay!
What though mortal joys be hollow?
Pleasures come, if sorrows follow.
Though the tocsin sound, ere long,
Ding dong! Ding dong!
Yet until the shadows fall
Over one and over all,
Sing a merry madrigal—
Fal la!
Let us dry the ready tear;
Though the hours are surely creeping,
Little need for woeful weeping
Till the sad sundown is near.
All must sip the cup of sorrow,
I to-day and thou to-morrow:
This the close of every song—
Ding dong! Ding dong!
What though solemn shadows fall,
Sooner, later, over all?
Sing a merry madrigal—
Fal la!