Conversations like these I have frequently had
With the rich and the great, and the good and the bad;
And I once had the pleasure and honour to dine
With the Prince, who’s a very great patron of
mine.
The banquet, I own, was a public affair,
At which his Royal Highness had taken the chair.
And I paid for my ticket; but still I’ve a right
To say with the Prince I had dinner that night.
And now, as folks’ memoirses seem all the go,
I’ve thought that the public might p’raps like to know
All about the great people of whom I can speak
With the candour becoming a Lion Comique.
Pickpocket Poems
I.
HE way was long, the wind was cold,
The minstrel was infirm and old.
Of two bioncs I robbed the bard,
For which I got three months with hard.
II.
She wore a wreath of roses
The night that first we met,
I went to call her carriage—
Ne’er that night can I forget.
I held the door a moment,
And, as she stepped inside,
I sneaked her lovely bracelet,
And round the corner guyed.
The next time that I met her
’Twas in the busy Strand;
She wore a hat and feathers,
And her purse was in her hand.
I saw it in a moment,
And methinks I see her now
As I snatched her purse and hooked it
Ere she’d time to make a row.