Ballad: The Two Ogres
Good children, list, if youre inclined,
And wicked children too
This pretty ballad is designed
Especially for you.
Two ogres dwelt in Wickham Wold
Each traits distinctive had:
The younger was as good as gold,
The elder was as bad.
A wicked, disobedient son
Was JAMES MALPINE, and
A contrast to the elder one,
Good APPLEBODY BLAND.
MALPINEbrutes like him are few
In greediness delights,
A melancholy victim to
Unchastened appetites.
Good, well-bred children every day
He ravenously ate,
All boys were fish who found their way
Into MALPINES net:
Boys whose good breeding is innate,
Whose sums are always right;
And boys who dont expostulate
When sent to bed at night;
And kindly boys who never search
The nests of birds of song;
And serious boys for whom, in church,
No sermon is too long.
Contrast with JAMESS greedy haste
And comprehensive hand,
The nice discriminating taste
Of APPLEBODY BLAND.
BLAND only eats bad boys, who swear
Who can behave, but dont
Disgraceful lads who say dont care,
And shant, and cant, and wont.
Who wet their shoes and learn to box,
And say what isnt true,
Who bite their nails and jam their frocks,
And make long noses too;
Who kick a nurses aged shin,
And sit in sulky mopes;
And boys who twirl poor kittens in
Distracting zoëtropes.
But JAMES, when he was quite a youth,
Had often been to school,
And though so bad, to tell the truth,
He wasnt quite a fool.
At logic few with him could vie;
To his peculiar sect
He could propose a fallacy
With singular effect.
So, when his Mentors said, Expound
Why eat good childrenwhy?
Upon his Mentors he would round
With this absurd reply:
I have been taught to love the good
The purethe unalloyed
And wicked boys, Ive understood,
I always should avoid.
Why do I eat good childrenwhy?
Because I love them so!
(But this was empty sophistry,
As your Papa can show.)
Now, though the learning of his friends
Was truly not immense,
They had a way of fitting ends
By rule of common sense.
Away, away! his Mentors cried,
Thou uncongenial pest!
A quirks a thing we cant abide,
A quibble we detest!
A fallacy in your reply
Our intellect descries,
Although we dont pretend to spy
Exactly where it lies.
In misery and penal woes
Must end a gluttons joys;
And learn how ogres punish those
Who dare to eat good boys.
Secured by fetter, cramp, and chain,
And gagged securelyso
You shall be placed in Drury Lane,
Where only good lads go.
Surrounded there by virtuous boys,
Youll suffer torture wus
Than that which constantly annoys
Disgraceful TANTALUS.
(If you would learn the woes that vex
Poor TANTALUS, down there,
Pray borrow of Papa an ex-
Purgated LEMPRIERE.)
But as for BLAND who, as it seems,
Eats only naughty boys,
Weve planned a recompense that teems
With gastronomic joys.
Where wicked youths in crowds are stowed
He shall unquestioned rule,
And have the run of Hackney Road
Reformatory School!
Ballad: Little Oliver
EARL JOYCE he was a kind old party
Whom nothing ever could put out,
Though eighty-two, he still was hearty,
Excepting as regarded gout.
He had one unexampled daughter,
The LADY MINNIE-HAHA JOYCE,
Fair MINNIE-HAHA, Laughing Water,
So called from her melodious voice.
By Nature planned for lover-capture,
Her beauty every heart assailed;
The good old nobleman with rapture
Observed how widely she prevailed
Aloof from all the lordly flockings
Of titled swells who worshipped her,
There stood, in pumps and cotton stockings,
One humble loverOLIVER.
He was no peer by Fortune petted,
His name recalled no bygone age;
He was no lordling coronetted
Alas! he was a simple page!
With vain appeals he never bored her,
But stood in silent sorrow by
He knew how fondly he adored her,
And knew, alas! how hopelessly!
Well grounded by a village tutor
In languages alive and past,
Hed say unto himself, Knee-suitor,
Oh, do not go beyond your last!
But though his name could boast no handle,
He could not every hope resign;
As moths will hover round a candle,
So hovered he about her shrine.
The brilliant candle dazed the moth well:
One day she sang to her Papa
The air that MARIE sings with BOTHWELL
In NEIDERMEYERS opera.
(Therein a stable boy, its stated,
Devoutly loved a noble dame,
Who ardently reciprocated
His rather injudicious flame.)
And then, before the piano closing
(He listened coyly at the door),
She sang a song of her composing
I give one verse from half a score:
BALLAD
Why, pretty page, art ever sighing?
Is sorrow in thy heartlet lying?
Come, set a-ringing
Thy laugh entrancing,
And ever singing
And ever dancing.
Ever singing, Tra! la! la!
Ever dancing, Tra! la! la!
Ever singing, ever dancing,
Ever singing, Tra! la! la!
He skipped for joy like little muttons,
He danced like Esmeraldas kid.
(She did not mean a boy in buttons,
Although he fancied that she did.)
Poor lad! convinced he thus would win her,
He wore out many pairs of soles;
He danced when taking down the dinner
He danced when bringing up the coals.
He danced and sang (however laden)
With his incessant Tra! la! la!
Which much surprised the noble maiden,
And puzzled even her Papa.
He nourished now his flame and fanned it,
He even danced at work below.
The upper servants wouldnt stand it,
And BOWLES the butler told him so.
At length on impulse acting blindly,
His love he laid completely bare;
The gentle Earl received him kindly
And told the lad to take a chair.
Oh, sir, the suitor uttered sadly,
Dont give your indignation vent;
I fear you think Im acting madly,
Perhaps you think me insolent?
The kindly Earl repelled the notion;
His noble bosom heaved a sigh,
His fingers trembled with emotion,
A tear stood in his mild blue eye:
For, oh! the scene recalled too plainly
The half-forgotten time when he,
A boy of nine, had worshipped vainly
A governess of forty-three!
My boy, he said, in tone consoling,
Give up this idle fancydo
The song you heard my daughter trolling
Did not, indeed, refer to you.
I feel for you, poor boy, acutely;
I would not wish to give you pain;
Your pangs I estimate minutely,
I, too, have loved, and loved in vain.
But still your humble rank and station
For MINNIE surely are not meet
He said much more in conversation
Which it were needless to repeat.
Now Im prepared to bet a guinea,
Were this a mere dramatic case,
The page would have eloped with MINNIE,
But, nohe only left his place.
The simple Truth is my detective,
With me Sensation cant abide;
The Likely beats the mere Effective,
And Nature is my only guide.