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