Kitabı oku: «Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs», sayfa 3

ONLY A DANCING GIRL

 
Only a dancing girl,
With an unromantic style,
With borrowed color and curl,
With fixed mechanical smile,
With many a hackneyed wile,
With ungrammatical lips,
And corns that mar her trips!
 
 
Hung from the "flies" in air,
She acts a palpable lie,
She's as little a fairy there
As unpoetical I!
I hear you asking, Why—
Why in the world I sing
This tawdry, tinselled thing?
 
 
No airy fairy she,
As she hangs in arsenic green,
From a highly impossible tree,
In a highly impossible scene
(Herself not over clean).
For fays don't suffer, I'm told,
From bunions, coughs, or cold.
 
 
And stately dames that bring
Their daughters there to see,
Pronounce the "dancing thing"
No better than she should be.
With her skirt at her shameful knee,
And her painted, tainted phiz:
Ah, matron, which of us is?
 
 
(And, in sooth, it oft occurs
That while these matrons sigh,
Their dresses are lower than hers,
And sometimes half as high;
And their hair is hair they buy,
And they use their glasses, too,
In a way she'd blush to do.)
 
 
But change her gold and green
For a coarse merino gown,
And see her upon the scene
Of her home, when coaxing down
Her drunken father's frown,
In his squalid, cheerless den:
She's a fairy truly, then!
 

THE SENSATION CAPTAIN

 
No nobler captain ever trod
Than Captain Parklebury Todd,
So good—so wise—so brave, he!
But still, as all his friends would own,
He had one folly—one alone—
This Captain in the Navy.
 
 
I do not think I ever knew
A man so wholly given to
Creating a sensation;
Or p'r'aps I should in justice say—
To what in an Adelphi play
Is known as "Situation."
 
 
He passed his time designing traps
To flurry unsuspicious chaps—
The taste was his innately—
He couldn't walk into a room
Without ejaculating "Boom!"
Which startled ladies greatly.
 
 
He'd wear a mask and muffling cloak,
Not, you will understand, in joke,
As some assume disguises.
He did it, actuated by
A simple love of mystery
And fondness for surprises.
 
 
I need not say he loved a maid—
His eloquence threw into shade
All others who adored her:
The maid, though pleased at first, I know,
Found, after several years or so,
Her startling lover bored her.
 
 
So, when his orders came to sail,
She did not faint or scream or wail,
Or with her tears anoint him.
She shook his hand, and said "Good-bye;"
With laughter dancing in her eye—
Which seemed to disappoint him.
 
 
But ere he went aboard his boat
He placed around her little throat
A ribbon blue and yellow,
On which he hung a double tooth—
A simple token this, in sooth—
'Twas all he had, poor fellow!
 
 
"I often wonder," he would say,
When very, very far away,
"If Angelina wears it!
A plan has entered in my head,
I will pretend that I am dead,
And see how Angy bears it!"
 
 
The news he made a messmate tell:
His Angelina bore it well,
No sign gave she of crazing;
But, steady as the Inchcape rock
His Angelina stood the shock
With fortitude amazing.
 
 
She said, "Some one I must elect
Poor Angelina to protect
From all who wish to harm her.
Since worthy Captain Todd is dead
I rather feel inclined to wed
A comfortable farmer."
 
 
A comfortable farmer came
(Bassanio Tyler was his name)
Who had no end of treasure:
He said, "My noble gal, be mine!"
The noble gal did not decline,
But simply said, "With pleasure."
 
 
When this was told to Captain Todd,
At first he thought it rather odd,
And felt some perturbation;
But very long he did not grieve,
He thought he could a way perceive
To such a situation!
 
 
"I'll not reveal myself," said he,
"Till they are both in the Eccle-
siastical Arena;
Then suddenly I will appear,
And paralyzing them with fear,
Demand my Angelina!"
 
 
At length arrived the wedding day—
Accoutred in the usual way
Appeared the bridal body—
The worthy clergyman began,
When in the gallant captain ran
And cried, "Behold your Toddy!"
 
 
The bridegroom, p'r'aps, was terrified,
And also possibly the bride—
The bridesmaids were affrighted;
But Angelina, noble soul,
Contrived her feelings to control,
And really seemed delighted.
 
 
"My bride!" said gallant Captain Todd,
"She's mine, uninteresting clod,
My own, my darling charmer!"
"Oh, dear," said she, "you're just too late,
I'm married to, I beg to state,
This comfortable farmer!"
 
 
"Indeed," the farmer said, "she's mine,
You've been and cut it far too fine!"
"I see," said Todd, "I'm beaten."
And so he went to sea once more,
"Sensation" he for aye forswore,
And married on her native shore
A lady whom he'd met before—
A lovely Otaheitan.
 

THE PERIWINKLE GIRL

 
I've often thought that headstrong youths,
Of decent education,
Determine all-important truths
With strange precipitation.
 
 
The over-ready victims they,
Of logical illusions,
And in a self-assertive way
They jump at strange conclusions.
 
 
Now take my case: Ere sorrow could
My ample forehead wrinkle,
I had determined that I would
Not like to be a winkle.
 
 
"A winkle," I would oft advance
With readiness provoking,
"Can seldom flirt, and never dance
Or soothe his mind by smoking."
 
 
In short, I spurned the shelly joy,
And spoke with strange decision—
Men pointed to me as a boy
Who held them in derision.
 
 
But I was young—too young, by far—
Or I had been more wary,
I knew not then that winkles are
The stock-in-trade of Mary.
 
 
I had not seen her sunlight blithe
As o'er their shells it dances,
I've seen those winkles almost writhe
Beneath her beaming glances.
 
 
Of slighting all the winkly brood
I surely had been chary,
If I had known they formed the food
And stock-in-trade of Mary.
 
 
Both high and low and great and small
Fell prostrate at her tootsies,
They all were noblemen, and all
Had balances at Coutts's.
 
 
Dukes with the lovely maiden dealt,
Duke Bailey and Duke Humphy,
Who eat her winkles till they felt
Exceedingly uncomfy.
 
 
Duke Bailey greatest wealth computes,
And sticks, they say, at no-thing.
He wears a pair of golden boots
And silver underclothing.
 
 
Duke Humphy, as I understand.
Though mentally acuter,
His boots are only silver, and
His underclothing pewter.
 
 
A third adorer had the girl,
A man of lowly station—
A miserable grov'ling earl
Besought her approbation.
 
 
This humble cad she did refuse
With much contempt and loathing;
He wore a pair of leather shoes
And cambric underclothing!
 
 
"Ha! ha!" she cried, "Upon my word!
Well, really—come, I never!
Oh, go along, it's too absurd!
My goodness! Did you ever?
 
 
"Two dukes would make their Bowles a bride,
And from her foes defend her"—
"Well, not exactly that," they cried,
"We offer guilty splendor.
 
 
"We do not offer marriage rite,
So please dismiss the notion!"
"Oh, dear," said she, "that alters quite
The state of my emotion."
 
 
The earl he up and says, says he,
"Dismiss them to their orgies,
For I am game to marry thee
Quite reg'lar at St. George's."
 
 
He'd had, it happily befell,
A decent education;
His views would have befitted well
A far superior station.
 
 
His sterling worth had worked a cure,
She never heard him grumble;
She saw his soul was good and pure
Although his rank was humble.
 
 
Her views of earldoms and their lot,
All underwent expansion;
Come, Virtue in an earldom's cot!
Go, Vice in ducal mansion!
 

BOB POLTER

 
Bob Polter was a navvy, and
His hands were coarse, and dirty too,
His homely face was rough and tanned,
His time of life was thirty-two.
 
 
He lived among a working clan
(A wife he hadn't got at all),
A decent, steady, sober man—
No saint, however—not at all.
 
 
He smoked, but in a modest way,
Because he thought he needed it;
He drank a pot of beer a day,
And sometimes he exceeded it.
 
 
At times he'd pass with other men
A loud convivial night or two,
With, very likely, now and then,
On Saturdays, a fight or two.
 
 
But still he was a sober soul,
A labor-never-shirking man,
Who paid his way—upon the whole
A decent English working man.
 
 
One day, when at the Nelson's Head,
(For which he may be blamed of you)
A holy man appeared and said,
"Oh, Robert, I'm ashamed of you."
 
 
He laid his hand on Robert's beer
Before he could drink up any,
And on the floor, with sigh and tear,
He poured the pot of "thruppenny."
 
 
"Oh, Robert, at this very bar,
A truth you'll be discovering,
A good and evil genius are
Around your noddle hovering.
 
 
"They both are here to bid you shun
The other one's society,
For Total Abstinence is one,
The other Inebriety."
 
 
He waved his hand—a vapor came—
A wizard, Polter reckoned him:
A bogy rose and called his name,
And with his finger beckoned him.
 
 
The monster's salient points to sum,
His heavy breath was portery;
His glowing nose suggested rum;
His eyes were gin-and-wortery.
 
 
His dress was torn—for dregs of ale
And slops of gin had rusted it;
His pimpled face was wan and pale,
Where filth had not encrusted it.
 
 
"Come, Polter," said the fiend, "begin,
And keep the bowl a-flowing on—
A working-man needs pints of gin
To keep his clockwork going on."
 
 
Bob shuddered: "Ah, you've made a miss,
If you take me for one of you—
You filthy beast, get out of this—
Bob Polter don't want none of you."
 
 
The demon gave a drunken shriek
And crept away in stealthiness,
And lo, instead, a person sleek
Who seemed to burst with healthiness.
 
 
"In me, as your advisor hints,
Of Abstinence you have got a type—
Of Mr. Tweedle's pretty prints
I am the happy prototype.
 
 
"If you abjure the social toast,
And pipes, and such frivolities,
You possibly some day may boast
My prepossessing qualities!"
 
 
Bob rubbed his eyes, and made 'em blink,
"You almost make me tremble, you!
If I abjure fermented drink,
Shall I, indeed, resemble you?
 
 
"And will my whiskers curl so tight?
My cheeks grow smug and muttony?
My face become so red and white?
My coat so blue and buttony?
 
 
"Will trousers, such as yours, array
Extremities inferior?
Will chubbiness assert its sway
All over my exterior?
 
 
"In this, my unenlightened state,
To work in heavy boots I comes,
Will pumps henceforward decorate
My tiddle toddle tootsicums?
 
 
"And shall I get so plump and fresh,
And look no longer seedily?
My skin will henceforth fit my flesh
So tightly and so Tweedie-ly?"
 
 
The phantom said, "You'll have all this,
You'll know no kind of huffiness,
Your life will be one chubby bliss,
One long unruffled puffiness!"
 
 
"Be off!" said irritated Bob.
"Why come you here to bother one?
You pharisaical old snob,
You're wuss almost than t'other one!
 
 
"I takes my pipe—I takes my pot,
And drunk I'm never seen to be:
I'm no teetotaller or sot,
And as I am I mean to be!"
 

GENTLE ALICE BROWN

 
It was a robber's daughter, and her name was Alice Brown;
Her father was the terror of a small Italian town;
Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing;
But it isn't of her parents that I'm going for to sing.
 
 
As Alice was a-sitting at her window-sill one day,
A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way;
She cast her eyes upon him, and he looked so good and true,
That she thought, "I could be happy with a gentleman like you!"
 
 
And every morning passed her house that cream of gentlemen,
She knew she might expect him at a quarter unto ten,
A sorter in the Custom-house, it was his daily road
(The Custom-house was fifteen minutes' walk from her abode).
 
 
But Alice was a pious girl, who knew it wasn't wise
To look at strange young sorters with expressive purple eyes;
So she sought the village priest, to whom her family confessed,
The priest by whom their little sins were carefully assessed.
 
 
"Oh, holy father," Alice said, "'twould grieve you, would it not?
To discover that I was a most disreputable lot!
Of all unhappy sinners I'm the most unhappy one!"
The padre said, "Whatever have you been and gone and done?"
 
 
"I have helped mamma to steal a little kiddy from its dad,
I've assisted dear papa in cutting up a little lad,
I've planned a little burglary and forged a little check,
And slain a little baby for the coral on its neck!"
 
 
The worthy pastor heaved a sigh and dropped a silent tear—
And said, "You mustn't judge yourself too heavily, my dear—
It's wrong to murder babies, little corals for to fleece:
But sins like that one expiates at half-a-crown apiece.
 
 
"Girls will be girls—you're very young, and flighty in your mind;
Old heads upon young shoulders we must not expect to find;
We mustn't be too hard upon these little girlish tricks—
Let's see—five crimes at half-a-crown—exactly twelve-and-six."
 
 
"Oh, father," little Alice cried, "your kindness makes me weep,
You do these little things for me so singularly cheap—
Your thoughtful liberality I never can forget;
But, O, there is another crime I haven't mentioned yet!"
 
 
"A pleasant-looking gentleman, with pretty purple eyes,
I've noticed at my window, as I've sat a-catching flies:
He passes by it every day as certain as can be—
I blush to say I've winked at him and he has winked at me!"
 
 
"For shame," said Father Paul, "my erring daughter! On my word
This is the most distressing news that I have ever heard.
Why, naughty girl, your excellent papa has pledged your hand
To a promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band!
 
 
"This dreadful piece of news will pain your worthy parents so!
They are the most remunerative customers I know;
For many years they've kept starvation from my doors,
I never knew so criminal a family as yours!
 
 
"The common country folk in this insipid neighborhood
Have nothing to confess, they're so ridiculously good;
And if you marry any one respectable at all,
Why, you'll reform, and what will then become of Father Paul?"
 
 
The worthy priest, he up and drew his cowl upon his crown,
And started off in haste to tell the news to Robber Brown;
To tell him how his daughter, who now was for marriage fit,
Had winked upon a sorter, who reciprocated it.
 
 
Good Robber Brown he muffled up his anger pretty well,
He said "I have a notion, and that notion I will tell;
I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits,
And get my gentle wife to chop him into little bits.
 
 
"I've studied human nature, and I know a thing or two,
Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do—
A feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall
When she looks upon his body chopped particularly small."
 
 
He traced that gallant sorter to a still suburban square;
He watched his opportunity and seized him unaware;
He took a life-preserver and he hit him on the head,
And Mrs. Brown dissected him before she went to bed.
 
 
And pretty little Alice grew more settled in her mind,
She never more was guilty of a weakness of the kind,
Until at length good Robber Brown bestowed her pretty hand
On the promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band.