Exactly to her mind,
By sitting at the window pane
Without a bit of blind;
But I go in the balcony,
Which she has never done,
Yet arts that thrive at Number Five
Don’t take at Number One!
’Tis hard with plenty in the street,
And plenty passing by,--
There’s nice young men at Number Ten,
But only rather shy;
And Mrs. Smith across the way
Has got a grown-up son,
But la! he hardly seems to know
There is a Number One!
There’s Mr. Wick at Number Nine,
But he’s intent on pelf,
And though he’s pious, will not love
His neighbour as himself.
At Number Seven there was a sale--
The goods had quite a run!
And here I’ve got my single lot
On hand at Number One!
My mother often sits at work
And talks of props and stays,
And what a comfort I shall be
In her declining days.
The very maids about the house
Have set me down a nun;
The sweethearts all belong to them
That call at Number One!
Once only when the flue took fire,
One Friday afternoon,
Young Mr. Long came kindly in
And told me not to swoon:
Why can’t he come again without
The Phœnix and the Sun!
We cannot always have a flue
On fire at Number One!
I am not old! I am not plain!
Nor awkward in my gait--
I am not crooked, like the bride
That went from Number Eight:
I’m sure white satin made her look
As brown as any bun--
But even beauty has no chance,
I think, at Number One!
At Number Six they say Miss Rose
Has slain a score of hearts,
And Cupid, for her sake, has been
Quite prodigal of darts.
The Imp they show with bended bow,
I wish he had a gun!
But if he had, he’d never deign
To shoot with Number One.
It’s very hard, and so it is,
To live in such a row!
And here’s a ballad singer come
To aggravate my woe.
Oh take away your foolish song
And tones enough to stun--
There is “Nae luck about the house,”
I know, at Number One!
THE DROWNING DUCKS.
Amongst the sights that Mrs. Bond
Enjoyed, yet grieved at more than others--
Were little ducklings in the pond,
Swimming about beside their mothers--
Small things like living water lilies,
But yellow as the daffo-_dillies_.
“It’s very hard,” she used to moan,
“That other people have their ducklings
To grace their waters--mine alone
Have never any pretty chucklings.”
For why!--each little yellow navy
Went down--all downy--to old Davy!
She had a lake--a pond I mean--
It’s wave was rather thick than pearly--
She had two ducks, their napes were green--
She had a drake, his tail was curly,--
Yet spite of drake, and ducks, and pond,
No little ducks had Mrs. Bond!
The birds were both the best of mothers--
The nests had eggs--the eggs had luck--
The infant D.’s came forth like others--
But there, alas! the matter stuck!
They might as well have all died addle,
As die when they began to paddle!
For when, as native instinct taught her,
The mother set her brood afloat,
They sank ere long right under water,
Like any overloaded boat;
They were web-footed too to see,
As ducks and spiders ought to be!
No peccant humour in a gander
Brought havoc on her little folks,--
No poaching cook--a frying pander
To appetite,--destroyed their yolks,--
Beneath her very eyes, Od’ rot ’em!
They went like plummets to the bottom.
The thing was strange--a contradiction
It seemed of nature and her works!
For little ducks, beyond conviction,
Should float without the help of corks:
Great Johnson it bewildered him!
To hear of chicks that could not swim.
Poor Mrs. Bond! what could she do
But change the breed--and she tried divers,
Which dived as all seemed born to do;
No little ones were e’er survivors--
Like those that copy gems, I’m thinking,
They all were given to die-sinking!
In vain their downy coats were shorn:
They floundered still;--Batch after batch went!
The little fools seemed only born
And hatched for nothing but a hatchment!
Whene’er they launched--oh sight of wonder!
Like fires the water “got them under!”
No woman ever gave their lucks
A better chance than Mrs. Bond did;
At last quite out of heart and ducks,
She gave her pond up and desponded;
For Death among the water lilies,
Cried “_Duc_ ad me,” to all her dillies.
But though resolved to breed no more,
She brooded often on this riddle--
Alas! twas darker than before!
At last, about the summer’s middle,
What Johnson, Mrs. Bond, or none did,
To clear the matter up the sun did!
The thirsty Sirius, dog-like, drank
So deep his furious tongue to cool,
The shallow waters sank and sank,
And lo, from out the wasted pool,
Too hot to hold them any longer,
There crawled some eels as big as conger!
I wish all folks would look a bit,
In such a case below the surface;
But when the eels were caught and split
By Mrs. Bond, just think of _her_ face,
In each inside at once to spy
A duckling turned to giblet pie!
The sight at once explained the case,
Making the Dame look rather silly,
The tenants of that _Eely Place_
Had found the way to _Pick a dilly_,
And so by under-water suction,
Had wrought the little ducks abduction.
DIBDIN MODERNIZED.
I _steamed_ from the Downs in the Nancy,
My jib how she _smoked_ through the breeze.
She’s a vessel as tight to my fancy
As ever _boil’d_ through the salt seas.
* * * * *
When up the _flue_ the sailor goes
And ventures on the _pot_,
The landsman, he no better knows,
But thinks hard is his lot.
Bold Jack with smiles each danger meets,
Weighs anchor, lights the log;
_Trims up the fire, picks out the slates_,
And drinks his can of grog.
* * * * *
Go patter to lubbers and swabs, do you see,
‘Bout danger, and fear, and the like;
But a _Boulton and Watt_ and good _Wall’s end_ give me;
And it an’t too a little I’ll strike.
Though the tempest our _chimney_ smack smooth shall down smite,
And shiver each _bundle_ of wood;
Clear the wreck, _stir the fire_, and stow everything tight,
And _boiling a gallop_ we’ll scud.
THE STORM
RE-WRITTEN.
Hark, the boatswain hoarsely bawling,
By shovel, tongues, and poker stand;
Down the scuttle quick be hauling,
Down your bellows, hand, boys, hand;
Now it freshens,--blow like blazes;
Now unto the coal-hole go;
Stir, boys, stir, don’t mind black faces,
Up your ashes nimbly throw.
Ply your bellows, raise the wind, boys,
See the valve is clear of course;
Let the paddles spin, don’t mind, boys,
Though the weather should be worse.
Fore and aft a proper draft get,
Oil the engines, see all clear;
Hands up, each a sack of coal get,
Man the boiler, cheer, lads, cheer.
Now the dreadful thunder’s roaring,
Peal on peal contending clash;
On our heads fierce rain falls pouring,
In our eyes the paddles splash.
One wide water all around us,
All above one smoke-black sky:
Different deaths at once surround us;
Hark! what means that dreadful cry?
The funnel’s gone! cries ev’ry tongue out,
The engineer’s washed off the deck;
A leak beneath the coal-hole’s sprung out
Call all hands to clear the wreck.
Quick, some coal, some nubbly pieces;
Come, my hearts, be stout and bold;
Plumb the boiler, speed decreases,
Four feet water getting cold.
While o’er the ship wild waves are beating,
We for wives or children mourn;
Alas! from hence there’s no retreating;
Alas! to them there’s no return.
The fire is out--we’ve burst the bellows,
The tinder-box is swamped below;
Heaven have mercy on poor fellows,
For only that can serve us now!
I’M NOT A SINGLE MAN.
“Double, single, and the rub.”--HOYLE.
“This, this is Solitude.”--BYRON.
I.
Well, I confess, I did not guess
A simple marriage vow
Would make me find all womenkind
Such unkind women now!
They need not, sure, as _distant_ be
As Javo or Japan,--
Yet every Miss reminds me this--
I’m not a single man!
II.
Once they made choice of my bass voice
To share in each duett;
[Illustration: SEA CONSUMPTION--WAISTING AWAY.]
[Illustration: A STRANGE BIRD.]
So well I danced, I somehow chanced
To stand in every set:
They now declare I cannot sing,
And dance on Bruin’s plan;
Me draw!--me paint!--me anything!--
I’m not a single man!
III.
Once I was asked advice, and task’d
What works to buy or not,
And “would I read that passage out
I so admired in Scott?”
They then could bear to hear one read;
But if I now began,
How they would snub “My pretty page,”
I’m not a single man!
IV.
One used to stitch a collar then,
Another hemmed a frill;
I had more purses netted then
Than I could hope to fill.
I once could get a button on,
But now I never can--
My buttons then were Bachelor’s--
I’m not a single man!
V.
Oh how they hated politics
Thrust on me by papa:
But now my chat--they all leave that
To entertain mamma.
Mamma, who praises her own self,
Instead of Jane or Ann,
And lays “her girls” upon the shelf--
I’m not a single man!
VI.
Ah me, how strange it is the change,
In parlour and in hall!
They treat me so, if I but go
To make a morning call.
If they had hair in papers once,
Bolt up the stairs they ran;
They now sit still in dishabille--
I’m not a single man!
VII.
Miss Mary Bond was once so fond
Of Romans and of Greeks;
She daily sought my cabinet,
To study my antiques.
Well, now she doesn’t care a dump
For ancient pot or pan,
Her taste at once is modernised--
I’m not a single man!
VIII.
My spouse is fond of homely life,
And all that sort of thing;
I go to balls without my wife,
And never wear a ring:
And yet each Miss to whom I come,
As strange as Genghis Khan,
Knows by some sign, I can’t divine,--
I’m not a single man!
IX.
Go where I will, I but intrude;
I’m left in crowded rooms,
Like Zimmerman on Solitude,
Or Hervey at his tombs.
From head to heel, they make me feel
Of quite another clan;
Compelled to own, though left alone,
I’m not a single man!
X.
Miss Towne the toast, though she can boast
A nose of Roman line,
Will turn up even that in scorn
Of compliments of mine:
She should have seen that I have been
Her sex’s partisan,
And really married all I could--
I’m not a single man!
XI.
’Tis hard to see how others fare,
Whilst I rejected stand,--
Will no one take my arm because
They cannot have my hand?
Miss Parry, that for some would go
A trip to Hindostan,
With me don’t care to mount a stair--
I’m not a single man!
XII.
Some change, of course, should be in force
But, surely, not so much--
There may be hands I may not squeeze
But must I never touch?--
Must I forbear to hand a chair
And not pick up a fan?
But I have been myself picked up--
I’m not a single man!
XIII.
Others may hint a lady’s tint
Is purest red and white--
May say her eyes are like the skies,
So very blue and bright,--
_I_ must not say that she _has eyes_;
Or if I so began,
I have my fears about my ears,--
I’m not a single man!
XIV.
I must confess I did not guess
A simple marriage vow,
Would make me find all women-kind
Such unkind women now;--
I might be hash’d to death, or smash’d
By Mr. Pickford’s van,
Without, I fear, a single tear.
I’m not a single man!
THE GHOST.
A VERY SERIOUS BALLAD.
“I’ll be your second.”--LISTON.
In Middle Row, some years ago,
There lived one Mr. Brown;
And many folks considered him
The stoutest man in town.
But Brown and stout will both wear out,
One Friday he died hard,
And left a widow’d wife to mourn
At twenty pence a yard.
Now widow B. in two short months
Thought mourning quite a tax;
And wished, like Mr. Wilberforce,
To _manumit_ her blacks.
With Mr. Street she soon was sweet;
The thing thus came about:
She asked him in at home, and then
At church he asked her out!
Assurance such as this the man
In ashes could not stand;
So like a Phœnix he rose up
Against the Hand in Hand.
One dreary night the angry sprite
Appeared before her view;
It came a little after one,
But she was after two
“Oh Mrs. B., oh Mrs. B.!
Are these your sorrow’s deeds,
Already getting up a flame,
To burn your widow’s weeds?
“It’s not so long since I have left
For aye the mortal scene;
My memory--like Rogers’s,
Should still be bound in green!
“Yet if my face you still retrace
I almost have a doubt--
I’m like an old Forget-Me-Not,
With all the leaves torn out!
“To think that on that finger-joint,
Another pledge should cling;
Oh Bess! upon my very soul,
It struck like ‘Knock and Ring.’
“A ton of marble on my breast
Can’t hinder my return;
Your conduct, Ma’am, has set my blood
A-boiling in my urn!
“Remember, oh! remember how
The marriage rite did run,--
If ever we one flesh should be,
’Tis now--when I have none!
“And you, Sir--once a bosom friend--
Of perjured faith convict,
As ghostly toe can give no blow,
Consider you are kick’d.
“A hollow voice is all I have,
But this I tell you plain,
Marry come up!--you marry, Ma’am,
And I’ll come up again.”
More he had said, but chanticleer
The spritely shade did shock
With sudden crow, and off he went,
Like fowling-piece at cock!
THE DOUBLE KNOCK.
Rat-tat it went upon the lion’s chin,
“That hat, I know it!” cried the joyful girl:
“Summer’s it is, I know him by his knock,
Comers like him are welcome as the day!
Lizzy! go down and open the street-door,
Busy I am to any one but _him_.
Know him you must--he has been often here;
Show him up stairs, and tell him I’m alone.”
Quickly the maid went tripping down the stair;
Thickly the heart of Rose Matilda beat;
“Sure he has brought me tickets for the play--
Drury--or Covent Garden--darling man!--
Kemble will play--or Kean who makes the soul
Tremble; in Richard or the frenzied Moor--
Farren, the stay and prop of many a farce
Barren beside--or Liston, Laughter’s Child--
Kelly the natural, to witness whom
Jelly is nothing to the public’s jam--
Cooper, the sensible--and Walter Knowles
Super, in William Tell--now rightly told.
Better--perchance, from Andrews, brings a box,
Letter of boxes for the Italian stage--
Brocard! Donzelli! Taglioni! Paul!
No card,--thank Heaven--engages me to-night!
Feathers, of course, no turban, and no toque--
Weather’s against it, but I’ll go in curls.
Dearly I dote on white--my satin dress,
Merely one night--it won’t be much the worse--
Cupid--the New Ballet I long to see--
Stupid! why don’t she go and ope the door?”
Glisten’d her eye as the impatient girl
Listen’d, low bending o’er the topmost stair.
Vainly, alas! she listens and she bends,
Plainly she hears this question and reply:
“Axes your pardon, Sir, but what d’ye want?”
“Taxes,” says he, “and shall not call again!”
OUR VILLAGE.--BY A VILLAGER.
Our village, that’s to say not Miss Mitford’s village, but our village of Bullock Smithy,
Is come into by an avenue of trees, three oak pollards, two elders, and a withy;
And in the middle, there’s a green of about not exceeding an acre and a half;
It’s common to all, and fed off by nineteen cows, six ponies, three horses, five
asses, two foals, seven pigs, and a calf!
Besides a pond in the middle, as is held by a similar sort of common law lease,
And contains twenty ducks, six drakes, three ganders, two dead dogs, four drown’d
kittens, and twelve geese.
Of course the green’s cropt very close, and does famous for bowling when the
little village boys play at cricket;
Only some horse, or pig, or cow, or great jackass is sure to come and stand right
before the wicket.
There’s fifty-five private houses, let alone barns and workshops, and pig-sties,
and poultry huts, and such-like sheds;
With plenty of public-houses--two Foxes, one Green Man, three Bunch of Grapes,
one Crown, and six King’s Heads.
The Green Man is reckon’d the best, as the only one that for love or money can raise
A postilion, a blue jacket, two deplorable lame white horses, and a ramshackled
“neat post-chaise.”
There’s one parish church for all the people, whatsoever may be their ranks in
life or their degrees,
Except one very damp, small, dark, freezing-cold, little Methodist chapel of Ease;
And close by the church-yard, there’s a stone-mason’s yard, that when the time
is seasonable
Will furnish with afflictions sore and marble urns and cherubims very low and reasonable.
There’s a cage, comfortable enough; I’ve been in it with Old Jack Jeffrey and Tom Pike;
For the Green Man next door will send you in ale, gin, or any thing else you like.
I can’t speak of the stocks, as nothing remains of them but the upright post;
But the pound is kept in repairs for the sake of Cob’s horse, as is always there almost.
There’s a smithy of course, where that queer sort of a chap in his way, Old Joe
Bradley,
Perpetually hammers and stammers, for he stutters and shoes horses very badly.
There’s a shop of all sorts, that sells every thing, kept by the widow of Mr. Task;
But when you go there it’s ten to one she’s out of every thing you ask.
You’ll know her house by the swarm of boys, like flies, about the old sugary cask.
There are six empty houses, and not so well paper’d inside as out,
For bill-stickers won’t beware, but sticks notices of sales and election placards all about.
That’s the Doctor’s with a green door, where the garden pots in the windows is
seen;
A weakly monthly rose that don’t blow, and a dead geranium, and a tea-plant with
five black leaves and one green.
As for hollyoaks at the cottage doors, and honeysuckles and jasmines, you may go and whistle;
But the Tailor’s front garden grow two cabbages, a dock, a ha’porth of pennyroyal,
two dandelions, and a thistle.
There are three small orchards--Mr. Busby’s the schoolmaster’s is the chief--
With two pear-trees that don’t bear; one plum and an apple, that every year is
stripp’d by a thief.
There’s another small day-school too, kept by the respectable Mrs. Gaby;
A select establishment, for six little boys and one big, and four little girls and a baby.
There’s a rectory, with pointed gables and strange old chimneys that never smokes,
For the rector don’t live on his living like other Christian sort of folks;
There’s a barber’s once a week well filled with rough black-bearded shock-headed churls,
And a window with two feminine men’s heads, and two masculine ladies in false curls;
There’s a butcher’s and a carpenter’s and a plumber’s and a small green-grocer’s, and a baker
But he won’t bake on a Sunday, and there’s a sexton that’s a coal-merchant besides, and an
undertaker;
And a toy-shop, but not a whole one, for a village can’t compare with the London shops;
One window sells drums, dolls, kites, carts, bats, Clout’s balls, and the other sells
malt and hops.
And Mrs. Brown, in domestic economy not to be a bit behind her betters,
Lets her house to a milliner, a watchmaker, a rat-catcher, a cobbler, lives in
it herself, and it’s the post-office for letters.
Now I’ve gone through all the village--ay, from end to end, save and except one
more house,
But I haven’t come to that--and I hope I never shall--and that’s the Village Poor-House!
PAIR’D _NOT_ MATCH’D.
Of wedded bliss
Bards sing amiss,
I cannot make a song of it;
For I am small,
My wife is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it.
When we debate
It is my fate
To always have the wrong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
And when I speak
My voice is weak,
But hers--she makes a gong of it!
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
She has, in brief,
Command in Chief,
And I’m but Aide-de-camp of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
She gives to me
The weakest tea,
And takes the whole Souchong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
She’ll sometimes grip
My buggy whip,
And make me feel the thong of it;
For I am small
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
Against my life
She’ll take a knife,
Or fork, and dart the prong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
I sometimes think
I’ll take to drink,
And hector when I’m strong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
O, if the bell
Would ring her knell,
I’d make a gay ding-dong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
[Illustration: The Buoy at the Nore.]
[Illustration: Son and Hair.]
THE BOY AT THE NORE.
“Alone I did it!--Boy!”--CORIOLANUS.
I say, little Boy at the Nore,
Do you come from the small Isle of Man?
Why, your history a mystery must be,--
Come tell us as much as you can,
Little Boy at the Nore!
You live it seems wholly on water,
Which your Gambier calls living in clover;--
But how comes it, if that is the case,
You’re eternally half seas over,--
Little Boy at the Nore?
While you ride--while you dance--while you float--
Never mind your imperfect orthography;--
But give us as well as you can,
Your watery auto-biography,
Little Boy at the Nore!
LITTLE BOY AT THE NORE LOQUITOR.
I’m the tight little Boy at the Nore,
In a sort of sea negus I dwells;
Half and half ’twixt saltwater and Port,
I’m reckon’d the first of the swells--
I’m the Boy at the Nore!
I lives with my toes to the flounders,
And watches through long days and nights;
Yet, cruelly eager, men look--
To catch the first glimpse of my lights--
I’m the Boy at the Nore.
I never gets cold in the head,
So my life on salt water is sweet,--
I think I owes much of my health
To being well used to wet feet--
As the Boy at the Nore.
There’s one thing, I’m never in debt:
Nay!--I liquidates more than I _oughtor_;[3]
So the man to beat Cits as goes by,
In keeping the head above water,
Is the Boy at the Nore.
I’ve seen a good deal of distress,
Lots of Breakers in Ocean’s Gazette;
They should do as I do--rise o’er all;
Aye, a good floating capital get,
Like the Boy at the Nore!
I’m a’ter the sailor’s own heart,
And cheers him, in deep water rolling;
And the friend of all friends to Jack Junk,
Ben Backstay, Tom Pipes, and Tom Bowling,
Is the Boy at the Nore!
Could I e’er but grow up, I’d be off
For a week to make love with my wheedles;
If the tight little boy at the Nore
Could but catch a nice girl at the Needles,
We’d have _two_ at the Nore!
They thinks little of sizes on water,
On big waves the tiny one skulks,--
While the river has Men of War on it--
Yes--the Thames is oppressed with Great Hulks,
And the Boy’s at the Nore!
But I’ve done--for the water is heaving
Round my body, as though it would sink it!
And I’ve been so long pitching and tossing,
That sea-sick--you’d hardly now think it--
Is the Boy at the Nore!
THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION.
A PATHETIC BALLAD.
“Oh flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!”--MERCUTIO.
I.
’Twas twelve o’clock by Chelsea chimes,
When all in hungry trim,
Good Mister Jupp sat down to sup
With wife, and Kate, and Jim.
II.
Said he, “Upon this dainty cod
How bravely I shall sup,”--
When whiter than the table-cloth,
A GHOST came rising up!
III.
“O, father dear, O, mother dear,
Dear Kate, and brother Jim,--
You know when some one went to sea,--
Don’t cry--but I am him!
IV.
“You hope some day with fond embrace
To greet your absent Jack,
But oh, I am come here to say
I’m never coming back!
V.
“From Alexandria we set sail,
With corn, and oil, and figs,
But steering ‘too much Sow,’ we struck
Upon the Sow and Pigs!
VI.
“The ship we pump’d till we could see
Old England from the tops;
When down she went with all our hands,
Right in the Channel’s Chops.
VII.
“Just give a look in Norey’s chart,
The very place it tells;
I think it says twelve fathom deep,
Clay bottom, mixed with shells.
VIII.
“Well, there we are till ‘hands aloft,’
We have at last a call;
The pug I had for brother Jim,
Kate’s parrot too, and all.
IX.
“But oh, my spirit cannot rest,
In Davy Jones’s sod,
Till I’ve appear’d to you and said,--
Don’t sup on that ‘ere Cod!
X.
“You live on land, and little think
What passes in the sea;
Last Sunday week, at 2 P.M.
That Cod was picking me!
XI.
“Those oysters too, that look so plump,
And seem so nicely done,
They put my corpse in many shells,
Instead of only one.
XII.
“O, do not eat those oysters then,
And do not touch the shrimps;
When I was in my briny grave,
They suck’d my blood like imps!
XIII.
“Don’t eat what brutes would never eat,
The brutes I used to pat,
They’ll know the smell they used to smell;
Just try the dog and cat!”
XIV.
The Spirit fled--they wept his fate,
And cried, Alack, alack!
At last up started brother Jim,
“Let’s try if Jack was Jack!”
XV.
They call’d the Dog, they call’d the Cat,
And little Kitten too,
And down they put the Cod and sauce,
To see what brutes would do.
XVI.
Old Tray lick’d all the oysters up,
Puss never stood at crimps,
But munch’d the Cod--and little Kit
Quite feasted on the shrimps!
XVII.
The thing was odd, and minus Cod
And sauce, they stood like posts;
O, prudent folks, for fear of hoax,
Put no belief in Ghosts!
THE BROKEN DISH.
What’s life but full of care and doubt,
With all its fine humanities,
With parasols we walk about,
Long pigtails and such vanities.
We plant pomegranate trees and things
And go in gardens sporting,
With toys and fans of peacocks’ wings,
To painted ladies courting.
We gather flowers of every hue,
And fish in boats for fishes,
Build summer-houses painted blue,--
But life’s as frail as dishes.