Fifty Bab Ballads Part 24

To PETER an idea occurred. "Suppose we cross the main?

So good an opportunity may not be found again."

And SOMERS thought a minute, then e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Done!

I wonder how my business in the City's getting on?"

"But stay," said Mr. PETER: "when in England, as you know, I earned a living tasting teas for BAKER, CROOP, AND CO., I may be superseded--my employers think me dead!"

"Then come with me," said SOMERS, "and taste indigo instead."

But all their plans were scattered in a moment when they found The vessel was a convict s.h.i.+p from Portland, outward bound; When a boat came off to fetch them, though they felt it very kind, To go on board they firmly but respectfully declined.

As both the happy settlers roared with laughter at the joke, They recognized a gentlemanly fellow pulling stroke: 'Twas ROBINSON--a convict, in an unbecoming frock!

Condemned to seven years for misappropriating stock!!!

They laughed no more, for SOMERS thought he had been rather rash In knowing one whose friend had misappropriated cash; And PETER thought a foolish tack he must have gone upon In making the acquaintance of a friend of ROBINSON.

At first they didn't quarrel very openly, I've heard; They nodded when they met, and now and then exchanged a word: The word grew rare, and rarer still the nodding of the head, And when they meet each other now, they cut each other dead.

To allocate the island they agreed by word of mouth, And PETER takes the north again, and SOMERS takes the south; And PETER has the oysters, which he hates, in layers thick, And SOMERS has the turtle--turtle always makes him sick.

Ballad: AT A PANTOMIME. BY A BILIOUS ONE.

An Actor sits in doubtful gloom, His stock-in-trade unfurled, In a damp funereal dressing-room In the Theatre Royal, World.

He comes to town at Christmas-time, And braves its icy breath, To play in that favourite pantomime, Harlequin Life and Death.

A h.o.a.ry flowing wig his weird Unearthly cranium caps, He hangs a long benevolent beard On a pair of empty chaps.

To smooth his ghastly features down The actor's art he cribs, - A long and a flowing padded gown.

Bedecks his rattling ribs.

He cries, "Go on--begin, begin!

Turn on the light of lime - I'm dressed for jolly Old Christmas, in A favourite pantomime!"

The curtain's up--the stage all black - Time and the year nigh sped - Time as an advertising quack - The Old Year nearly dead.

The wand of Time is waved, and lo!

Revealed Old Christmas stands, And little children chuckle and crow, And laugh and clap their hands.

The cruel old scoundrel brightens up At the death of the Olden Year, And he waves a gorgeous golden cup, And bids the world good cheer.

The little ones hail the festive King, - No thought can make them sad.

Their laughter comes with a sounding ring, They clap and crow like mad!

They only see in the humbug old A holiday every year, And handsome gifts, and joys untold, And unaccustomed cheer.

The old ones, palsied, blear, and h.o.a.r, Their b.r.e.a.s.t.s in anguish beat - They've seen him seventy times before, How well they know the cheat!

They've seen that ghastly pantomime, They've felt its blighting breath, They know that rollicking Christmas-time Meant Cold and Want and Death, -

Starvation--Poor Law Union fare - And deadly cramps and chills, And illness--illness everywhere, And crime, and Christmas bills.

They know Old Christmas well, I ween, Those men of ripened age; They've often, often, often seen That Actor off the stage!

They see in his gay rotundity A clumsy stuffed-out dress - They see in the cup he waves on high A tinselled emptiness.

Those aged men so lean and wan, They've seen it all before, They know they'll see the charlatan But twice or three times more.

And so they bear with dance and song, And crimson foil and green, They wearily sit, and grimly long For the Transformation Scene.

Ballad: HAUNTED.

Haunted? Ay, in a social way By a body of ghosts in dread array; But no conventional spectres they - Appalling, grim, and tricky: I quail at mine as I'd never quail At a fine traditional spectre pale, With a turnip head and a ghostly wail, And a splash of blood on the d.i.c.key!

Mine are horrible, social ghosts, - Speeches and women and guests and hosts, Weddings and morning calls and toasts, In every bad variety: Ghosts who hover about the grave Of all that's manly, free, and brave: You'll find their names on the architrave Of that charnel-house, Society.

Black Monday--black as its school-room ink - With its dismal boys that snivel and think Of its nauseous messes to eat and drink, And its frozen tank to wash in.

That was the first that brought me grief, And made me weep, till I sought relief In an emblematical handkerchief, To choke such baby bosh in.

First and worst in the grim array- Ghosts of ghosts that have gone their way, Which I wouldn't revive for a single day For all the wealth of PLUTUS - Are the horrible ghosts that school-days scared: If the cla.s.sical ghost that BRUTUS dared Was the ghost of his "Caesar" unprepared, I'm sure I pity BRUTUS.

I pa.s.s to critical seventeen; The ghost of that terrible wedding scene, When an elderly Colonel stole my Queen, And woke my dream of heaven.

No schoolgirl decked in her nurse-room curls Was my gus.h.i.+ng innocent Queen of Pearls; If she wasn't a girl of a thousand girls, She was one of forty-seven!

I see the ghost of my first cigar, Of the thence-arising family jar - Of my maiden brief (I was at the Bar, And I called the Judge "Your wushup!") Of reckless days and reckless nights, With wrenched-off knockers, extinguished lights, Unholy songs and tipsy fights, Which I strove in vain to hush up.

Ghosts of fraudulent joint-stock banks, Ghosts of "copy, declined with thanks,"

Of novels returned in endless ranks, And thousands more, I suffer.

The only line to fitly grace My humble tomb, when I've run my race, Is, "Reader, this is the resting-place Of an unsuccessful duffer."

I've fought them all, these ghosts of mine, But the weapons I've used are sighs and brine, And now that I'm nearly forty-nine, Old age is my chiefest bogy; For my hair is thinning away at the crown, And the silver fights with the worn-out brown; And a general verdict sets me down As an irreclaimable fogy.

Footnotes:

{1} A version of this ballad is published as a Song, by Mr.

Jeffreys, Soho Square.

{2} This ballad is published as a Song, under the t.i.tle "If," by Messrs. Cramer and Co.

{3} "Go with me to a Notary--seal me there Your single bond."--Merchant of Venice, Act I., sc. 3.