^»J 
 
 MWMmjmailM'Mtil><'Hft>)Ji4>BMMMH!M| 
 
 OF 
 
 Babylon 
 
 GEORGE R . SIMS 
 
 # 
 
 •M9?WM«»rm^Wa*<am<«n*aM 
 
 IWWIIMWP I H MIH i n.i i' .li «-»»<<r'»»-
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 BALLADS OF BABYLON.
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVE3SIPF
 
 BALLADS OF 
 BABYLON. 
 
 nv 
 
 b 
 GEORGE R. SIMS. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE DAGONET BALLADS." 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN P, VV L L E R, 
 
 Wi\r. OfFIO] I lOXJBT, B.C. 
 
 io.

 
 To JOHN RYDER, ESQ., 
 
 The eminent Actor and Professor of Elocution, these 
 
 Ballads are dedicated by his sincere Friend and 
 Admirer, 
 
 GEORGE R. SIMS.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 pah: 
 
 OVERTURE .... 
 
 FALLEN BY THE WAV 
 
 ONE WINTER NIGHT 
 
 THE MATRON'S STORY 
 
 SIR RUPERT'S WIFE 
 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY . 
 
 A SILVER WEDDING 
 
 A LA I LOOK 
 
 THE EARL'S DAUGHTER 
 OSTLER JOE . . • • 
 
 BEAU! V AND THE BE ■ 
 A LEGEND OF LOVE . 
 FORGOTTEN— A LAST INTERVIEW 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 19 
 
 27 
 40 
 
 47 
 57 
 <-l 
 7° 
 78 
 84 
 no
 
 vi. CONTENTS. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 PApG 
 
 THE LIGHTS OF LONDON TOWN . . .101 
 
 SENSATIONAL SCIENCE . . . . 103 
 
 THE BUTTERCUP'S EXPLANATION . . . 107 
 
 LITTLE JIM ,09 
 
 A COMMON OCCURRENCE . .Ill 
 
 the policeman's tale . . . . 113 
 
 an aspiration 117 
 
 in the hall 120 
 
 undertones .12 1 
 
 my arctic tour ... .123 
 
 a change for the better . . , 1 27 
 the drinker's dirge . . . . 129 
 the alderman's retrospect . . . 130 
 
 the joke i?2 
 
 harmonious numbers . . . .134 
 
 my summer retreat . . . . 1 36 
 
 REGRET 138 
 
 A RONDEL 139
 
 CONTENTS. vii. 
 
 A TRUE STORY . 
 
 THE HUMAN AUCTION 
 
 A LEGEND .... 
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN . 
 
 THE HAUSFRAUENVERE1N . 
 
 LITTLE WORRIES . 
 
 YE BARDE'S DESYRE . 
 
 ON A RECENT LITERARY FEED 
 
 A DOUBLE EVE-ENT . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 140 
 
 ■ 143 
 
 H5 
 
 . I48 
 
 I50 
 
 . 152 
 
 154 
 
 155 
 
 156
 
 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 OVERTURE. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 !<( )M I'.abylon the mighty, for ever and for 
 aye, 
 Float the voices of her toilers and the 
 fighters in the fray — 
 Floai the voices of her victims high above the 
 
 battle's din, 
 A- they < hant in fitful measure all the ballads of her 
 sin. 
 
 From Babylon the mighty the monster chorus 
 
 ells, 
 A cry to one vague heaven from all the million 
 
 hells; 
 
 The wail ol souls despairing, the < urse ol maddened 
 
 w 
 
 The thriek ol hunted wretches who flee the ruth- 
 foe
 
 /.LADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 I hear Ihe half-hushed whisper, the growing mur- 
 murs, I hen 
 
 The deep hoarse cry for vengeance of fierce and 
 frenzied men — 
 
 The wild baxbaric music that crashes through the 
 spheres, 
 
 To die away in echoes of the women's sobs and 
 tears. 
 
 I hear the lonely singer who wanders from the 
 
 crowd, 
 Whose song is sung in secret, with blanched face 
 
 earthward bowed, 
 Who shuns the swollen chorus and seeks His ear 
 
 alone, 
 To tell a God of sorrows what sorrows men have 
 
 known. 
 
 From Babylon the mighty, for ever and for 
 
 aye, 
 Float the voices of her toilers and the lighters in the 
 
 fray — 
 Float the voices of her victims high above the 
 
 battle's din, 
 As they chant in fitful measure all the ballads of her 
 
 sin.
 
 FALLEN BY THE WAY. 
 
 ON'T be a fool and blub, Jim, it's a 
 darned good thing lor you — 
 You'll find a mate as can carry ami '11 
 play tin- music too ; 
 I'm done this time, lor a dollar— I ran hardly get 
 my breath ; 
 
 nething as tells me, somehow, " Bill Jo) . 
 you be took for death." 
 It's a wessel gone bust, and a big'un; I can hardly 
 
 speak tor blood ; 
 It'^ the la t day's tramp as 'as 'lone it — the hills 
 
 .1 nd tin- mile o' mud. 
 There ainM not tin- sign of a light, Inn, in tin 
 
 God-forsaken -pot — 
 Hunt lor soun- warter, pardner, lor mj lips is 
 
 lnirnin' hoi 
 
 B 2
 
 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 How much ha J we took to-day, Jim ? Why not a 
 
 single brown, 
 And our show was one o' the best once, and we 
 
 rode from town to town ; 
 Now it's dirty and old and battered, and the 
 
 puppets is wus for wear, 
 And their arms and their legs is shaky, and their 
 
 backs is reg'lar bare. 
 I ain't done my share o' the work, mate, since I 
 
 went that queer in the chest, 
 But I done what I could, old fellow, and you know 
 
 as I did my best ; 
 And now — well, I'm done, I reckon ; it's life as is 
 
 flowing fast — 
 Stick to me, Jim — don't leave me; it's the end as 
 
 is come at last. 
 
 There's Toby a-waggin' his tail there ; poor chap, 
 
 how he'll miss me, Jim ! — 
 Whoever you takes for mate, mind, they ain't to be 
 
 'ard on 'im ; 
 For I 'ad him a six weeks' puppy, and I taught him 
 
 to box with Punch — 
 What was that sound in the distance ? I fancied I 
 
 heard a scrunch.
 
 FALLEN BY THE WAY. 
 
 Xothin' — ah well, no matter! 1 thought 'twas a 
 
 footstep p'r'aps. 
 A traveller as might ha 5 helped us, or one o' them 
 
 farmer chaps. 
 A doctor might stop the bleedin" 1 ; but there's never 
 
 a chance o' one. 
 I'll be cold and dead in the mornin' — yer poor old 
 
 pardner's done. 
 
 I feel just as if I was chokin' and I'm, O, so faint 
 
 and low ; 
 Prop me agen the boxes, so I can see the 
 
 show — 
 The dear old show and the puppets, Judy and 
 
 Punch an 1 all ; 
 I'd like just to see 'em again, Jim — so prop me afore 
 
 I fall. 
 the miles thai we've been together, I and the 
 
 puppets and you 
 
 And I our faithful Toby— ah, when the show 
 
 was new ' 
 Do ye think of the time, old fellow, when firsl we 
 
 took i he road, 
 And the was with us, God bless her land never a 
 
 griel we knowed ?
 
 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 It may be as God'll let her look down from the sky 
 
 to-night, 
 From out o' the stars up yonder, where she sits in 
 
 the Halls o' Light- 
 Look clown on the poor old showman and see as his 
 
 time is nigh, 
 And he's comin' to join his darlin' where there's 
 
 never no more Good-bye ! 
 O, Jim, how I well remember the night as my 
 
 sweetheart died, 
 When she lay by the wee dead baby, only a nine 
 
 months' bride. 
 'Twas the fall from the stilts as did it, and the wild, 
 
 rough life we led : 
 D'ye mind what she whispered dyin' — the beautiful 
 
 words she said ? 
 
 'Twas when she knew she was goin' ; I'm seeing 
 
 her wai. white chei k 
 And the sweet sad smile that lit it when she tried so 
 
 hard to speak ; 
 When she took our hands and joined 'em, and bade 
 
 us, through bad and good, 
 Be pals, and stick tight to each other ! and both 
 
 on us said we would.
 
 FALLEN BY THE WAY. 
 
 I knew as you loved her fust, Jim, and had loved 
 
 her all along, 
 And I see how you 'id yer feelin's when you see as 
 
 you'd counted wrong ; 
 1 you stuck like a pal to the show, Jim, and you 
 
 worked and whistled away, 
 I she never guessed your secret, or she wouldn't 
 
 ha' been so gay. 
 
 I fancy the dear old days. Jim, when she was alive, 
 
 poor lass — 
 Th »ts that we had by the hedges, and the chats 
 
 in the long green grass, 
 And the cosy nights at the taverns, when the coin 
 
 came rolling in : 
 How we laughed when she puffed our baccy, and 
 
 pretended to drink our gin ! 
 Th< n Toby, a gay young fellow, would lie- by the 
 
 fire and doze, 
 While the missis worked at the puppets, and altered 
 
 and turned their (I"' 
 And Judy and Punch and Joey were never so smart 
 
 l)«l 
 
 And 'In Gho t had a nice white gown on .1 
 
 ( ! n might hi' won-.
 
 <s BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 She went in the cruel winter, when the bread was 
 
 hard to get, 
 When we tramped and slept in the cowsheds, hungry 
 
 and cold and wet. 
 How far am I from her grave, Jim ? Ah, a hundred 
 
 miles maybe ; 
 To lie by the side o' one's darlin' ain't meant for 
 
 the likes o' me. 
 The parish '11 bury me here, Jim — here where I 
 
 chance to die ; 
 Come to the grave and see me, and bid me a last. 
 
 good-bye. 
 You can bring the show and the puppets, and Toby, 
 
 and beat the drum ; 
 Who knows but that I may hear it in the wonderful 
 
 Kingdom Come? 
 
 I'm goin', old pal — don't blubber and look with that 
 skeered white face ; 
 
 Stand by me here to the last, lad; it's a horrible 
 lonely place ; 
 
 Stoop, for I'll have to whisper — O, my eyes grow 
 strange and dim, 
 
 And I feel like poor old Punch feels when the hang- 
 man comes to him.
 
 FALLEN BY THE WAY. 
 
 I warn't much use as a pardner, and I ain't not 
 
 been for a year, 
 This bustin' o' wessels and corfin' has made me that 
 
 awful queer, 
 I'd like to ha' got to a willage or ha' crawled as fur 
 
 as a shed: 
 Jim, if I lose my senses, stay till yer know I'm 
 
 dead. 
 
 1 it's hard to die in the open — here on a country 
 
 road ; 
 '1 hat's a matter o' scntymunt, ain't it ? well 
 
 sentymunt jes' be blow ed ! 
 For win re can a cove die better than under a starlit 
 
 sky, 
 Willi his pardner's arms about him, and a (car in 
 
 his pardner's eyi ? 
 Now I want yer to do me a favour — it's the last as 
 
 I'll ask ye, Jim — 
 '1 lure's a mist coniin' over my eyeballs, and my 
 
 ai to swim ; 
 Set up the show in 1 iad I here then- w hei e I lie 
 
 moonlighl be — 
 Lei down the baize and work It, now, while I've 
 
 strength to ee.
 
 io BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Give me the drum a minit — I can hardly raise the 
 
 stick ; 
 Now, are ye ready, pardner? — up with the curtain, 
 
 quick ! 
 The blood comes faster and faster — that's it! Ah, 
 
 Punch, old boy, 
 And Judy, and there's the Baby, and Toby, the 
 
 children's joy. 
 Poor Toby, he knows there's trouble ; for see how 
 
 he hangs his tail ; 
 Bark at the Bobby, Toby, he's a-takin' old Punch 
 
 to gaol. 
 Where have you gone to, pardner? Where have 
 
 you put the show ? 
 I see but the big, black shadows that darker and 
 
 darker grow. 
 
 I know what it is — the signal! Put down the 
 
 pipes and drum. 
 I'm off to the distant country — the touch on the 
 
 shoulder's come. 
 Shall I take any message for you, Jim ? I shall see 
 
 her up there, maybe, 
 And I'll tell her how hard you worked, mate, and 
 
 the pal as you've been to me.
 
 FALLEN BY THE WAY n 
 
 Jim, when I'm gone I wants yer just to look in the 
 
 box and take 
 The ragged old dress we kept there and treasured 
 
 for her sweet sake — 
 The dress that she made for Judy — and lay it upon 
 
 my breast ; 
 And I want you, the day I'm buried, to give the 
 
 show a rest. 
 
 Bring 'em away to the churchyard, and show 'em 
 
 their master's grave. 
 Now take up your pipes and blow 'em, and tip us a 
 
 farewell sta- • 
 Mind, when you're choosin' a mate, Jim, don't 
 
 have a rogue or muff; 
 Make him handle the puppets gentle, for they've 
 
 i-r been i rough. 
 
 <m the dog a minit — see how he licks my 
 
 iw lor a tune on the pipes, male, and speak as 
 the puppets speak ; 
 It's the in isii l'\ e lived my I ife to lei mi hi ar it 
 
 jain and die. 
 I'm a-goin' to her — I'm goin'- God ble • yer, Jim I 
 — good-bye.
 
 Boj^v ^'^nfl 
 
 Bffif^^^SSI^gJ'^SWU^^^^g 
 
 rOT r^^Sj 
 
 MB ,, Q8P 
 
 ddb vF ^NHfinHt/^T , ^jflfflcnfffjA \r sS^i 
 
 L ' M wS8fl 
 
 HS ^Jai 
 
 2*3* v ^j^^SffffEii^ttRf tii^ftfff^Hffifr^fli ■ ^iio3Sl 
 
 fcOOiffi 
 
 asV *•* jini 
 
 
 BV -v Jb88 
 
 ONE WINTER NIGHT. 
 
 VGGED, wretched, worn and weary, 
 
 Come the casuals, creeping in, 
 Where the Parish nightly shelters 
 Shame and sorrow, sloth and sin; 
 Where the wounded in life's battle, 
 Pushed aside and trodden down, 
 Share the Poor Law's tender mercy 
 With the refuse of the town. 
 
 When the night has flung her mantle 
 
 Rags and tatters kindly o'er, 
 Come the outcasts, meekly knocking 
 
 At the black, forbidding door. 
 All the storm-tossed human wreckage, 
 
 Sport for fortune's changing tide, 
 Hither drifts as to a harbour — 
 
 Foul and fair float side by side.
 
 OiYE WINTER NIGHT. 13 
 
 Here, through all the long night watches, 
 
 Want and woe can rest their heads : 
 Who shall say what bygone blisses 
 
 Hover round these narrow beds? 
 Stained with travel, bent and broken, 
 
 Here the starving outcast lies, 
 Yet he smiles — some happy vision 
 
 Sleep has drawn across his eyes. 
 
 Sleep has come to weary eyelids, 
 
 Dreams have come to tortured brains, 
 And in dreams perchance they wander 
 
 Freely o'er life's pleasant plains. 
 Look where lies a woman sleeping, 
 
 Moaning even in her rest. 
 With a wee, wan baby pillowed 
 
 On her chill and shrivelled breast. 
 
 In her sleep she sees the husband 
 
 Whom 1 he cruel fever slew, 
 While h<- sought the honest labour 
 
 I [e was all too weak to do. 
 1 aint and foot sore, broken-hearted, 
 
 ( old a nd hunger did their work : 
 Charity that might have 9aved him 
 
 Went abroad to help the I urk.
 
 14 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 When the throes of death were on him, 
 
 With a groan he raised his head, 
 And he cried, '' O God, have mercy 
 
 On my darlings when I'm dead ! " 
 Then his dying kiss he gave them — 
 
 All that he had left to give — 
 Still the craved-for mercy tarries, 
 
 For his wife and baby live. 
 
 *t* *K *K 
 
 'Tis the Sabbath, and a woman, 
 
 With a baby on her knee, 
 Sits among the poor who worship 
 
 In the sittings labelled " Free." 
 From the cutting blast of winter 
 
 She has sought a refuge there, 
 Though the peasants eye her fiercely, 
 
 Wondering " how such creatures dare." 
 
 Rent and ragged are her garments, 
 
 Pinched and pallid is her face; 
 She is tramping from the workhouse 
 
 To her distant native place. 
 Here she rests awhile and listens 
 
 In the warm and cosy church, 
 While the vicar reads a sermon 
 
 From his velvet-cushioned perch.
 
 ONE WINTER NIGHT. 15 
 
 For a special sermon chosen 
 
 Is the Saviour's gentle speech, 
 When He blessed the little children, 
 
 Laying loving hands on each ; 
 And the parson tells his people 
 
 How God loves the children well, 
 And will take them to his bosom 
 
 In the ofolden land to dwell.' - 
 
 " Dry your eyes," he says, " O mourners, 
 
 When your cherished darlings die ; 
 Think how warm within God's bosom 
 
 In that happy land they lie. 
 There no more can pain and anguish 
 
 Wring the heart and cloud the brow - 
 They are past all sin and sorrow, 
 
 They are happy angels now." 
 
 Peals the music of the organ 
 
 A the people pass awa) ; 
 O'er the fields they hurry homeward, 
 
 For I hi are .1 hen grey ; 
 
 And a homeless creature totti 
 
 I , om ( rod' 3 temple with the re »l ; 
 
 In Iwr hi art I [is loving promi e, 
 
 And a baby al her brea I 
 
 * *
 
 1 6 HALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Hark, the tempest howls in fury, 
 
 And the snow is falling fast, 
 As an outcast sinks exhausted, 
 
 For her strength gives way at last. 
 She is lost upon the moorland, 
 
 Daylight's last faint glimmer fled, 
 And the shelter that she seeks for 
 
 Lieth weary miles ahead. 
 
 She is blinded by the snowstorm, 
 
 And her limbs are numb with cold ; 
 In her rags she wraps the baby 
 
 That her weak arms scarce can hold. 
 She can feel its frozen body, 
 
 She can hear its piteous cry, 
 And she thinks as on she staggers, 
 
 What — O God — if she should die ! 
 
 If her senses should desert her, 
 
 And through all the cruel night 
 Here her babe should slowly perish — ■ 
 
 Ah, thank God ! — she sees a light. 
 No, her eyes are dim with anguish, 
 
 'Twas a star peeped through a cloud. 
 Hark, the blast grows fierce and fiercer, 
 
 And the baby moans aloud.
 
 ONE WINTER NIGHT. i 7 
 
 Then the mother clasps it closer, 
 
 While her chill lips press its cheeks ; 
 As her strength comes back a moment, 
 
 In a strange, wild way she speaks : 
 " Go, O baby dear ! " she murmurs, 
 
 " From my breast, all cold and dry, 
 Go to where, in God's warm bosom, 
 
 All the happy babies lie." 
 
 Pass the preacher's words of comfort 
 
 Swiftly through her tortured brain ; 
 ;h above her stretch the heavens 
 
 Where they know not grief and pain. 
 What had earth to give her baby ? 
 
 What could be its life below? 
 Just one long, long spell of torture, 
 
 Years of hunger, want, and woe. 
 
 Down she kneels, poor maddened mother — 
 
 God forgive her wicked hand 
 A it frees a soul, and sends it 
 
 Up In sck the promised land! 
 Then she leaves her liny burden, 
 
 All SO Still and quiet now ; 
 
 Stoops to print two loving kissea 
 Softly on its marble brow. 
 
 * * *
 
 iS 
 
 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Late that night they found her, living, 
 
 And the law condemned her crime. 
 " Death ! " cried Justice, passing sentence. 
 
 But before the fatal time, 
 He who took her burden from her 
 
 Flung her prison gates ajar — 
 He perchance lets tortured mothers 
 
 Pass to where their babies are.
 
 THE MATRON'S STORY. 
 
 HE was drunk — mad drunk — was Molly, 
 the night that I saw her first; 
 I'd seen some terrible cases, but hers 
 was the very worst. 
 This refuge had just been started for the daughters 
 
 of night and sin, 
 And I was the matron here, sir, on the night thai 
 they brought her in. 
 
 Her face was Bushed and swollen, and a blow had 
 
 i ut her eye, 
 And the blood thai had oozed unnoticed on her 
 
 • heek was caked and dry. 
 
 laughed with a hoarse, wild laughter, and 
 
 capered and ki< ked about, 
 And yore and she i foully we thought 
 
 we must turn her out. 
 
 i ■
 
 20 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 She'd come for a spree, as often these poor lost 
 
 creatures come. 
 They hear of our " midnight meetings " away in 
 
 their filthy slum ; 
 I've seen 'em jump up on the platform and fling 
 
 down the chairs and shriek, 
 And join in a ribald chorus when the clergyman 
 
 tried to speak. 
 
 But Molly was worse than any — she staggered 
 
 across the place 
 And picked up a brass-bound hymn-book and aimed 
 
 at our chaplain's face ; 
 It cut him across the cheek-bone, and he uttered a 
 
 cry of pain, 
 Then we rushed at Molly to seize her, but she 
 
 struggled with might and main. 
 
 She bit and she tore and scratched us, and kicked 
 
 like a beast at bay, 
 Then all of a sudden reeled forward, and still as a 
 
 mouse she lay ; 
 In the struggle her wound was injured, and the 
 
 blood flowed down apace, 
 And the same sort of mark we noticed was on hers 
 
 and the chaplain's face.
 
 THE MATRON'S STORY. 21 
 
 What a fist had done for Molly the hymn-book had 
 
 done for him ; 
 He was only a young beginner, and he trembled in 
 
 every limb ; 
 For the wound was deep and painful, but he pushed 
 
 his way through the crowd, 
 And cleared his voice with an effort, and spoke 
 
 these words aloud : 
 
 " Poor lass, may the Lord forgive her as I forgive 
 
 her too ! " 
 Ami silent, as if by magic, stood the whole of the 
 
 yelling crew ; 
 While he, with his face all bleeding, did the words 
 
 of the Saviour quote, 
 That the left cheek should be offered to one who 
 
 the right cheek smote. 
 
 lie came where we held the wanton, and he moved 
 
 his lips in prayer, 
 And smoothed from her bloody features the mas 
 
 of tangled hair. 
 " Take her away," he whispered, "and see thai her 
 
 u ound is drest," 
 Then he spake aloud the blessing, and then he di - 
 
 mis ed the r<
 
 nil. LADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 We kept the girl at the Refuge right from the hour 
 
 she swooned 
 Till time and a kindly surgeon had thoroughly 
 
 healed the wound ; 
 In a week it was closed completely, but leaving a 
 
 mark to mar, 
 And the face of the poor lost creature and his had 
 
 the self-same scar. 
 
 The day she was well she left us — left us with 
 
 never a word ; 
 Went back to the awful outcasts with whom such 
 
 women herd ; 
 And now and again we gathered news of the life 
 
 she led: 
 "In the hospital," once they told us, and then that 
 
 the girl was dead. 
 
 It was five years after that, sir, one night went our 
 
 faithful priest 
 On a mission of love and mercy to an awful place 
 
 down East — 
 To a den where the lowest women herd with the 
 
 vilest thieves — 
 They're some of the very worst, sir, that our Refuge 
 
 here receives.
 
 THE MATRON'S STORY. 
 
 ^■3 
 
 He'd heard from a girl who came here tales of this 
 
 Devil's place, 
 And he made up his mind to storm it, armed with 
 
 the word of Grace. 
 His face flushed red as he told us, and spoke of the 
 
 souls to win. 
 And the task that the Lord had set him in that haven 
 
 of shame and sin. 
 
 He laughed when we spoke of danger, and that 
 night went forth alone, — 
 
 But we had a strange misgiving which we hardly- 
 liked to own ; 
 
 He was back on the stroke of midnight — back from 
 the jaws of hell, 
 ' his face was pale and ghastly, he'd a strange 
 wild tale to tell. 
 
 lb- had entered that filthy alley and spoken God's 
 
 W'onl aloud, 
 Till I lie people swarmed about him in a thick and 
 
 i lin.it ening crowd ; 
 And they jeered and they spal and hooted, and the 
 
 women were worst of all, 
 lor they pi ( ked u]) filth to pelt him, and drove him 
 again t the wall.
 
 24 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Beaten and bruised and smothered, he then would 
 have turned and fled, 
 
 When a well-aimed brickbat struck him full on his 
 hatless head. 
 
 Then he turned quite sick and giddy, and felt him 
 dragged along, 
 
 And a door was slammed in the faces of the threat- 
 ening, murderous throng. 
 
 And beside him there stood a woman — he could 
 
 hardly see her face, 
 For a foul and a noisome darkness hung o'er the 
 
 dreadful place. 
 " Hush for your life ! " she whispered, " I've bolted 
 
 and barred the door; 
 They'd 'ave vour blood if I'd let 'em — hark, how 
 
 the tigers roar ! 
 
 " They found out as you're the parson as 'tices the 
 
 gals away, 
 They say it's through you they peaches and goes on 
 
 the ' Christian' lay. 
 I dragged you in here and saved you, and sent out 
 
 a gal for the slops* ; 
 Ha, they're a-comin', sir ! Listen ! the noise and 
 
 the shoutin' stops." 
 
 * The police. The word— originally back slang, " ecilop "—has passed 
 into the ordinary nr;ot of the street.
 
 THE MATRON'S STORY. 25 
 
 The noise was changed in a moment to a hiss and 
 
 a sullen groan, 
 The woman crept close and listened, then open the 
 
 door was thrown, 
 And there was a sergeant standing with six of his 
 
 tallest men, 
 And our chaplain walked between them out of that 
 ' awful den. 
 
 And just as they reached the entry, lo, a woman's 
 piercing shriek 
 
 Told of the brutal vengeance the ruffians tried to 
 wreak. 
 
 He guessed what it was, did the sergeant, and hurry- 
 ing back they found 
 
 The woman who'd saved our chaplain all of a heap 
 on the ground. 
 
 The crowd in their brutal fury had beaten the 
 woman down, 
 
 They kicked at her prostrate body till the red blood 
 stained her gown ; 
 
 Bui nobody knew who'd done it — the cowards had 
 
 slunk away, 
 Her Fa< e was all white and ghastly in the lighl ol 
 
 the bull's-eye's ray.
 
 26 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 'Twas the face of an old acquaintance our chaplain 
 
 saw that night ; 
 By the scar on the cheek he knew her, in the lantern's 
 
 quivering light — 
 'Twas Molly, the long lost Molly, the girl that we 
 
 thought was dead — 
 She beckoned him down and whispered, and these 
 
 were the words she said : 
 
 " I know'd yer to-night by yer scar, sir, the scar o' 
 
 the cut I made ; 
 I heerd how yer treated me then, sir ; how yer- give 
 
 me yer blessin' and prayed, 
 And I sez when I see yer in danger : Moll, you've 
 
 a debt to pay, 
 So I dragged yer away in yonder, and I 'eld them 
 
 curs at bay." 
 
 Died? No, she didn't; we saved her — she's matron 
 
 here under me ; 
 That's she — and ah, here comes the chaplain — now 
 
 both the scars you can see. 
 And often we tell the story, how the Lord in His 
 
 tender grace 
 Saved a life and a soul together all through a scar 
 
 on the face.
 
 SIR RUPERT'S WIFE. 
 
 OU see where the cliffs frown yonder in 
 aline of clingy red? — 
 The wild, fierce crag, the highest, Is 
 known as Sir Rupert's Head : 
 live hundred feet and over from the brow to 
 the sea below, 
 And it won its name in the winter a hundred years 
 
 ago. 
 Then wasn't a squire in Devon so famous as 
 
 Rupert Leigh ; 
 H< was lord of these broad, rich acres, good- 
 looking and fancy free. 
 Hi came of a race of giants, stood six-feet-tWO in 
 
 his socks, 
 And once, for a Mrunkcn wager, with his list he 
 had Idled an ox.
 
 28 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 " Dare-devil Leigh" was his nickname, he was last 
 
 of a lawless line 
 Who had gone to the deuce full gallop, through 
 
 women and cards and wine. 
 He wasn't so bad as they were — he was more of a 
 
 hunting squire, 
 And he freed the name a little from some of the 
 
 ancient mire. 
 I lis wasn't an easy country, but he'd take it every 
 
 inch, 
 And ride as straight as an arrow where the boldest 
 
 well might flinch. 
 When a lad he had climbed yon headland, climbed 
 
 it from base to crest, 
 For a short-frocked hussy who wanted the eggs 
 
 in a seagull's nest. 
 
 One winter he went to London — he was then 
 
 about forty-three ; 
 His steward had told the parson he'd lawyers in 
 
 town to see. 
 'Twa . dull in the place without him, for his 
 
 mansion was Liberty Hall ; 
 There was always a warm wet welcome for 
 
 neighbours who chose to call.
 
 S/R RUPERT'S WIPE. 
 
 He was gone for a twelvemonth nearly, writing to 
 
 no old friends, 
 But a Devonshire man in London news to the 
 
 parson sends. 
 Sir Rupert had married a madam, a play-acting, 
 
 mincing wench, 
 Who painted and patched and powdered, and was 
 
 finikin, tine, and French. 
 
 She was no more French than I am, but this was 
 
 about the time 
 That French was the title given to nigh every kind 
 
 of crime. 
 She sang at a minor play-house — in opera, so they 
 
 say — 
 And he saw her as Polly I Vadium in that famous 
 
 work by Gay. 
 He was always an easy target for a wench's rolling 
 
 eye. 
 
 Soil gol to bouquets and presents, and to letters 
 
 by-and-by. 
 He was wax in the hussy's fingers, and she moulded 
 
 with prac tised skill, 
 
 "I ill he took the form oi a hu b ind, the slave o\ her 
 ;htes1 mV:
 
 -1 
 
 o BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 They travelled about a little, saw Paris, the Hague, 
 
 and Rome — 
 Then the news went abroad Sir Rupert was 
 
 bringing his lady home. 
 The people about here liked him, and no warmth 
 
 did their welcome lack, 
 But they looked askance at my lady, and she gave 
 
 them their glances back. 
 They hated her then directly, they chafed at her 
 
 cold disdain, 
 And they gossiped her story over in language a bit 
 
 too plain. 
 They called her a " stuck-up stroller," and some- 
 how the scandal grew, 
 Till my lady as " Polly Peachum " the whole of the 
 
 country knew. 
 
 Sir Rupert was broken-hearted when he heard of 
 
 the mocking tone, 
 And he quarrelled with all his comrades until he 
 
 was left alone — 
 Alone at the Hall with " Polly," for the gentry had 
 
 cut her dead, 
 But his heart was as true as f.ver to the woman 
 
 he'd stooped to wed.
 
 SIR RUPERT'S WIFE. 31 
 
 To him she was just an angel who'd come from the 
 
 holy skies 
 That his heart might bask for ever in the light of 
 
 her lustrous eyes. 
 No wine, no cards, and no hunting : he kept at my 
 
 lady's side — 
 'Twas a great big boy with a sweetheart, not a man 
 
 with a year-won bride. 
 
 She pined in the lonely mansion ; she wanted 
 
 society — life — 
 She wanted to play my lady as well as Sir Rupert's 
 
 wife. 
 Sir Rupert must ask a party — not of bumpkins, but 
 
 folks from town : 
 He had plenty of friends in London ; would he not 
 
 ask them down ? 
 They came, and the sound of laughter rang through 
 
 the I [all once more, 
 And iii\ lady was proud and happy, but her 
 
 husband's heart was sore ; 
 He had I I from an idle whisper — a whisper 
 
 not me mi for him — 
 A se< rel thai sapped his life-blood and the strength 
 
 of each stalwart limb.
 
 32 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 He reeled when he heard the whisper and guessed 
 
 at the ghastly truth : 
 'Twas the tale of a player-woman and a curled and 
 
 scented youth, 
 A dandy of six-and-twenty, the son of an old, old 
 
 chum — 
 He was one of the guests invited, and one of the 
 
 first to come. 
 Sir Rupert had been in London a guest at his 
 
 father's, too, 
 And this young fop, he remembered, had led him 
 
 his wife to woo ; 
 He had raved of this Polly Peachum, and dragged 
 
 him to hear her sing; 
 He said at the time he knew her — 'twas a planned 
 
 and a plotted thing! 
 
 And now she was always with him, they chatted 
 
 and laughed away ; 
 She was cold and dull with Sir Rupert, — with him 
 
 she was kind and gay. 
 She was weary of playing my lady, of being Sir 
 
 Rupert's wife — 
 She pined for the tinsel glories of the old 
 
 Bohemian life ;
 
 SIR RUPERT'S WIFE. 33 
 
 She hated the dull decorum, she hated the legal 
 
 tie— 
 r cage was a cage, though gilded. Then the 
 
 tempter whispered " Fly ! " 
 One night both their chairs were empty, and slowly 
 
 the news leaked out : 
 Two horses were irone from the stable — 'twas a 
 
 settled thing, no doubt. 
 
 Sir Rupert was white with horror, but he turned to 
 
 the gaping ( rew 
 And cried, " It's a lie, I tell you ! — who dares to say 
 
 it's true ? " 
 Then seizing his holster pistols, he mounted his 
 
 fleetest mare 
 d made straight for the Red Cliff roadway — he 
 1 d they had gone by t here. 
 I • r that was the way to London, from Exmouth the 
 
 pair would pi 
 ! the road they were bound to travel was the 
 
 road by the rugged 1 
 it you look you will sec it passes righl over the 
 
 headland's brow — 
 
 1 nly a century distant it wa n't so good as 
 
 now. 
 
 D
 
 34 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 He dug his spurs in the hunter, and it flew up the 
 
 fearful steep. 
 'Tvvas a wild, fierce night in the winter, and the 
 
 snow lay thick and deep ; 
 But the moon through the clouds had broken, and 
 
 right on the Head he spied 
 A horse that had slipped and fallen, and the rider 
 
 by its side ; 
 And over them bent a figure, but whose he could 
 
 scarcely see, 
 Then he uttered a cry to Heaven that his wife 
 
 unharmed might be ; 
 And lashing his steed to fury, it flew through the 
 
 slippery snow, 
 While the wild waves roared a warning fiv^ 
 
 hundred feet below. 
 
 A slip, and both horse and rider would roll to a 
 
 hideous fate, 
 But Sir Rupert, with set white features, rode to the 
 
 headland straight. 
 They heard him now, and the woman rose from her 
 
 knees and moaned. 
 And the man gave a sudden shudder and opened 
 
 his eyes and groane 1.
 
 SIR RUPERT'S WIFE. 35 
 
 Sir Rupert reined up so fiercely that the mare on 
 
 the precipice reared, 
 And the woman sprang back with horror, in the 
 
 jaws of the death she feared. 
 For a moment she seemed to totter, and then with 
 
 a piercing cry 
 Went over that awful headland that seems to touch 
 
 the sky. 
 
 For a second no sound was uttered, only the 
 
 billows roared. 
 While up from its nest a seagull, startled and 
 
 shrieking, soared ; 
 Then, shouting for help, Sir Rupert clutched at the 
 
 snow-clad turf, 
 And glanced with a look of horror down at the 
 
 boiling surf. 
 And a ty there peering, right at the farthest 
 
 •mething his eyes detected— a heap on a narrow 
 ted 
 It was thirty a th< m, bul he knew '(was 
 
 hi ■ .. n t< hed wife, 
 And he vowed, though his own paid forfeit, 
 
 ty life.
 
 36 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 He could see there were tiny juttings where his 
 
 foot might find a hold, 
 And the man he had quite forgotten was worth his 
 
 weight in gold. 
 The booby was bruised and shaken, and fancied 
 
 that he should die, 
 But Sir Rupert bade him help him or he'd shoot 
 
 him by-and-by. 
 Then the white-faced coward whimpered and lifted 
 
 his jewelled hands, 
 And Sir Rupert set him tearing his mantle in 
 
 narrow bands. 
 Then the strips were twined together and tied to a 
 
 rough stone seat, 
 And over went brave Sir Rupert, clinging with 
 
 hands and feet. 
 
 The waves in their winter fury shrieked for a 
 
 human life, 
 But down and down crept Rupert till he swung by 
 
 his senseless wife. 
 Stooping, he clasped her firmly, one hand on the 
 
 doubtful rope, 
 Pressed his lips on her marble forehead, and 
 
 whispered her, " Darling — hope ! "
 
 S/R RUPERT'S WIFE. 37 
 
 Then breathing a prayer to Heaven to save them 
 
 both that night, 
 He toiled with his heavy burden up the face of the 
 
 frowning height. 
 A fall of the soft red sandstone, a slip of his 
 
 bleeding hand, 
 And their bodies had lain together, crushed on the 
 
 cruel strand. 
 
 Safe! safe at last on the summit! safe on the firm 
 
 hard road ! ' 
 There where the moonbeans glittered, he glanced 
 
 at hi^ senseless load. 
 Her face was bruised and battered, and the warm 
 
 blood welled and gushed ; 
 And he aw that his wife was injured, and her 
 
 tender bones were crushed. 
 
 No tl ice <>t the lady's gallant; he'd limped to a 
 hon '• and How n : 
 
 Sir Rupert and " Polly Peachum " were there on 
 
 the height - .done. 
 He leaped on the gallant hunter, took his wife in 
 
 hi ay arms, 
 
 And galloped across the country to one ol hi 1 - 
 
 tenant
 
 38 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 For six long months my lady hovered 'twixt death 
 
 and life — 
 'Twas a surgeon who came from London that 
 
 saved Sir Rupert's wife — 
 And when she was out of danger it was known she 
 
 was marked and maimed — 
 A battered, misshapen cripple, distorted and scarred 
 
 and lamed. 
 But Sir Rupert clung closer to her, they travelled 
 
 from place to place, 
 And he never winced or shuddered at the sight of 
 
 her injured face. 
 It was he who carried the cripple," who nursed her 
 
 with tenderest care : 
 And never in knightly story such gallant had lady 
 
 fair. 
 
 For many a year she lingered — 'twas up at the Hall 
 
 she died, 
 And herein the village churchyard they're sleeping 
 
 side by side. 
 She died in his arms confessing the worth of his 
 
 noble love, 
 And in less than a year he sought her in the 
 
 mansions of God above.
 
 SIR RUPERT'S WIFE. 
 
 39 
 
 There stands the great bluff headland — there swells 
 
 the sea below — 
 And the story I've told you happened nigh a 
 
 hundred years ago. 
 Yet there isn't a soul that visits those towering 
 
 crags of red 
 Rut thinks of the love and daring that hallowed 
 
 "Sir Rupert's Head."
 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY. 
 
 HEY quarrelled on Christmas night, 
 Fell out, and it came to blows. 
 No ! it wasn't a stand-up right ; 
 For the woman was one of those 
 Who love like a faithful dog, 
 
 With a love as deep as mute. 
 Will was primed with the Christinas grog, 
 And drunk he was just a brute. 
 
 A wee frail thing was she, 
 
 A trembling, pale-faced wench ; 
 And a burly chap was he, 
 
 With a giant's fist to clench. 
 He clenched it that night with rage 
 
 At something his help-meet said ; — 
 Some counsel discreet and sage — 
 
 It was that to the quarrel led.
 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY. 41 
 
 It was but a loving word, 
 
 Just a thrifty wife's advice ; 
 She wasn't a scold to gird, 
 
 But his wrath was up in a trice. 
 He was always a hasty chap, 
 
 And quick with a word and blow ; 
 If he hadn't been drunk, mayhap, 
 
 Things wouldn't have happened so. 
 
 He up with his fist, did Will, 
 
 And he hit her across the head — 
 She groaned, and then all was still, 
 
 And she lay like a lump of lead. 
 She had fallen across the chair, 
 
 And her face was white as death ; 
 lb- opened the door for air, 
 
 And listened to hear her breath. 
 
 He looked in her ashen face 
 
 And saw where his list had hit — 
 Near the temple — a nasty place — 
 
 And t In- skin with the blow had split. 
 Down on his knee 1 he fell, 
 
 Sobered and shaking now ; 
 In his heart he had loved her well, 
 
 And it was but a drunken row.
 
 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 I :ad ! — not a sign of life, 
 
 Not a flutter — he strained his cars ; 
 He gazed on his murdered wife 
 
 With a thousand ghastly fears. 
 His brain was aflame. He thought 
 
 Of the murderer's awful doom ; 
 Safety in flight he sought, 
 
 And rushed from the haunted room. 
 
 He wandered and wandered far 
 
 Away from the ghastly sight, 
 Seeing in every star 
 
 God's eye on that Christmas night. 
 With her wraith at his heels he flew, 
 
 Travelled and sought the sea, 
 And, joining a rabble crew, 
 
 Sailed for the wild West free. 
 
 Over the whole earth's face, 
 Bearing the brand of Cain — 
 
 Now in some savage place, 
 Now on the distant main — 
 
 Wandered the guilty wretch, 
 Haunted by night and day, 
 
 With his hands too foul to stretch 
 i to the skies and pray.
 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY. 43 
 
 orard and worn and weak, 
 
 Men read in his deep-lined brow 
 A story he dared not spear, 
 
 And all of them shunned him now 
 Outcast, with never a friend 
 
 Under the world-wide sky, 
 Longed he his life to end, 
 
 Yet did he fear to die. 
 
 Accursed of God he bore 
 
 The weight of a voiceless woe 
 Till the years he counted as four 
 
 Since he struck the fatal blow. 
 And the Christmas time came round 
 
 As they sighted a famous strand, 
 Where Old England's sons have fo 
 
 A home in a foreign land. 
 
 I In- bells rang mil a ( liim< 
 
 ( )n the sultry Christmas morn, 
 'i ,, tell <>f the sweel glad time 
 Winn Christ tin- Lord wa - born. 
 
 rang in the out< ast'j 1 ars 
 A 1,. of ti nder love ; 
 
 ;i. lii. I.i- <■ all \\<l will 
 
 1 le pray< d i<> the God
 
 44 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 And when from his knees he rose 
 
 There was hope in the sinner's breast ; 
 He had seen how his life should close — 
 
 God had pointed the path to rest. 
 Homeward he bent his way, 
 
 Home to the far-off goal, 
 To tell in the light of day 
 
 The secret that seared his soul. 
 
 t* 5|C *|* 
 
 Ah ! weary the road has been, 
 
 But the pilgrim stands at last 
 There on the old, old scene, 
 
 There with the ghastly past. 
 He will see where he struck the blow 
 
 Ere he goes to his righteous fate, 
 And then shall grim justice know 
 
 Who knocks at her iron ^ate. 
 
 He will whisper his secret then 
 
 That is known but to God on high : 
 It soon shall be; known of men — 
 
 What will it cost to die? 
 'Twas God, when he prayed, who lent 
 
 Peace to his tortured breast, 
 By Him was the pilgrim sent 
 
 That confession lis soul might rest.
 
 A CHRISTMAS STORY. 45 
 
 He stands in the early morn 
 
 There, where the deed was done, 
 Just as the light is born 
 
 Of the faint December sun. 
 He peers in the tiny room, 
 
 Then reels with a scared white face — 
 Is it part of his awful doom 
 
 That her ghost shall haunt the place? 
 
 There ! — there on the cursed spot ! — 
 
 " Mercy, O God!" he cries; 
 And his breath comes fast and hot — 
 
 How she stares with those sweet blue eyes ! 
 She comes down the garden walk 
 
 With her arms outstretched to him ; 
 Can a phantom in daylight stalk 
 
 As it dors in the twilight dim? 
 
 Sin (onus, and he tries to scream, 
 
 ■ Ba< k ! phantom of flesh and blood!" 
 H is a murd< n ha ily dream ; 
 
 Yd hark, how her heart goes thud ! 
 It is sin- 1 'Tis his winsome wile ! 
 
 X,, ghosl from a noisome tomb ; 
 Her 1. 'he warmth of life, — 
 
 lie U saved from a murderer'? doom.
 
 .;<> BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Hark, how the bells ring out 
 
 Sweet on the frosty air ; 
 God's message — ah ! never a doubt — 
 
 "' Behold how I answer prayer." 
 Told is the story soon 
 
 How she whom he fancied dead 
 Had come from her death-like swoon 
 
 Only to find him fled. 
 
 " He has left me," she thought, and wept. 
 
 " He has left me for evermore ! " 
 Yet true had her fond heart kept 
 
 As slowly the years passed o'er. 
 It is Noel, the glad bells say, 
 
 As they clang from the steeple's height ; 
 Let the joy of this Christmas Day 
 
 Atone for that Christmas night.
 
 A SILVER WEDDING. 
 
 Dick on our silver wedding, from 
 Harold and Elspeth Grey" — 
 (jive me my glasses, nephew. Is that 
 what the letters say ? 
 1 low stiffly these lockets open. Ah, there's a spring, 
 
 I 
 A picture of both, God bless them! to show that 
 
 they think of me. 
 Did ever you see two faces so sweet and calm a 
 
 kind? 
 I heir 01 i in ol life i an hardly have know n a 
 boisterous wind. 
 at their happy features — the peace in the 
 il i ..i h — 
 Ah, strange is the tale they'd tell yon had pi< tui 
 the gift <>f spee< h.
 
 48 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 To-dav is their silver wedding — a fourtli of a 
 
 century's past 
 Since, after a fierce, wild tempest, they came to 
 
 their rest at last ; 
 And I who had known their story, who from boy- 
 hood had been his friend, 
 Knelt with them both at the altar where their lives 
 
 were to meet and blend. 
 But a year was gone and over since their names 
 
 were asked in church, 
 And whispers went round the neighbours so ready 
 
 one's fame to smirch. 
 The wedding was fixed and settled, the wedding 
 
 that should have been — 
 But it happened a twelvemonth later — the first one 
 
 was stopped, I mean. 
 
 Yes, stopped, as it were, at the altar, stopped on 
 
 the very morn, 
 And the bride had to hide her secret, and swallow 
 
 the whispered scorn. 
 She was dressed in her bridal raiment, and bonnv 
 
 and flushed and glad, 
 When he came to the house like a spectre, with a 
 
 look so scared and mad
 
 A SILVER WEDDING. 49 
 
 That the bridesmaids shook like aspens as he 
 
 passed them in the hall. 
 Then he asked for the mother and Elspeth, and 
 
 then came a cry and fall — 
 She had fainted away, poor darling. He had left 
 
 it till the last, 
 This message of evil fortune, that came like a 
 
 blighting blast. 
 
 ntly Elspeth' s father came, with a stern- 
 
 To gather the guests together, all who were in the 
 
 place. 
 II iid thai a great misfortune had come upon 
 
 Harold <»rey, 
 And his daughter was lying sp< < « hless, ami would 
 
 1,.- ii" bride that daw 
 i wedding favours droi e fasl 
 
 in- 1.1 gi iel ; 
 An! I v. ■ ay i<> Si . Pet r's with .11 • as 
 
 brief. 
 I vvhi 1 the waitiii and pa ssed to the 
 
 • ■ 
 h< 1 1, iends an 1 kinsfolk the sad and 
 1..
 
 5 o 11. / L LA DS OF BABYLON. 
 
 "To Dick on our silver wedding " — I was always 
 
 his old friend Dick ; 
 We were chums when the oats were sowing and the 
 
 pulse of our youth beat quick. 
 We were students in Paris together, we were both 
 
 of us mad for art, 
 We lodged in the Latin Quarter, and for months 
 
 were never apart, 
 Till Harold got hit by a model, a beautiful, bold, 
 
 bad girl, 
 With a face that was meant for mischief and eyes 
 
 to set brains in a whirl. 
 She angled for Harold, the hussy, and landed him 
 
 safe ashore ; 
 He married the jade, poor fellow, and then we were 
 
 chums no more. 
 
 His father had left him money, and Harold was well 
 
 to do, 
 He gave up the Latin Quarter and the old Bohemian 
 
 crew, 
 And taking his Mimi with him went back to his 
 
 English home, 
 And then, so I heard from his cousin, he went 
 
 painting again to Rome.
 
 A SILVER WEDDING. 51 
 
 From time to time still I gathered some news of 
 
 his wandering life — 
 He was worried and ill, they told me, and had work 
 
 with his foreign wife. 
 e left him at last in a passion — left him and 
 
 crossed the seas, 
 And his lawyers sent her monthy, the price of 
 
 their client's ease. 
 
 Then Harold and I were cronies once more as in 
 
 days gone by, 
 t or he sought me out in my chambers, and told me 
 
 with many a sigh 
 ( H the bonds that had worn his heart out, and how, 
 
 now that his life was free, 
 He had thought of our old, sweet friendship, and 
 
 how happy he'd been with me; 
 Here we had rooms together and painted and 
 
 smoked and wrote, 
 Contented on life's vast ocean like rudderless ships 
 
 to flo 
 
 were 1) ippy as lords and y, when a 
 
 me to H irold < ame 
 
 That the ( ourl oi Death had di I him From the 
 
 woman who bore 1
 
 52 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Two years went by ere he whispered a secret he'd 
 
 kept with care — 
 A story all love and rapture, and the charms of a 
 
 maiden fair. 
 He spoke of his boyhood's error and his manhood's 
 
 bitter pain, 
 And the ansrel who'd come to bless him, the beau- 
 
 tiful Elspeth Rayne. 
 It was settled before he told me, and they'd fixed 
 
 the happy day — 
 I must see her at once ; he took me and carried me 
 
 straight away 
 To papa and mamma and Elspeth, and I felt such an 
 
 awkward stick 
 When Harold, his blue eyes laughing, cried, " This 
 
 is my dear old Dick ! " 
 
 lie spoke of our life-long friendship, and how good 
 
 I had been to him, 
 Till 1 felt like a blushing schoolgirl and my eyes 
 
 were queer and dim ; 
 And his Elspeth came and whispered, she feared I 
 
 should hate her so — 
 I was one of the family circle, like a friend of the 
 
 long ago. 
 
 E 2
 
 A SILVER WEDDING. 53 
 
 Well, the time came round for the wedding, and the 
 
 nigfht before we met. 
 And we spoke of the glad to-morrow — ah, that 
 
 night I shall ne'er forget ! 
 I and Harold went home together, our path lay by 
 
 Thames's tide, 
 And he spoke of the dead that evening, and then 
 
 of to-morrow's bride. 
 
 And just by the bridge a woman passed us with 
 
 lightning speed, 
 In a moment we guessed her errand, in a second 
 
 she did tin- deed ; 
 A cry on the cold black waters, then a leap from 
 
 the muddy strand, 
 Brave Harold had plunged and seized her and had 
 
 dragged her safe to land. 
 The people had come about us, and a hearty cheer 
 
 I ; 
 But he with a look of horror in the face of the out- 
 
 .1/1,1, 
 For there, with her brea 1 fa: 1 hi with the 
 
 1. (.1 returning life, 
 Lay tlic woman If once had honoured with tl 
 
 sa< red name <>f wife.
 
 54 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Her death was a well-planned fiction — she nourished 
 
 a cruel hate, 
 And bided her time to strike him, on the eve of a 
 
 happier fate.. 
 She would wait till he wedded another, then prey 
 
 on his hopes and fears, 
 And the gold that would buy her silence would pay 
 
 for the two lost years. 
 But she drank, and her brain was maddened ; she 
 
 had leapt in the stream to-night 
 When her soul was a prey to terrors and the fever 
 
 was at its height. 
 Me bore her away and housed her, and hid her from 
 
 prying eyes, 
 And the limbs of the law came slowly to find they 
 
 had lost their prize. 
 
 When the shock Time's hand had softened, came 
 
 beautiful Elspeth Rayne 
 To kneel by the "side of the woman, who moaned 
 
 with a ceaseless pain ; 
 She prayed to the God of mercy to spare the poor 
 
 lost soul, 
 The time to repent her trespass and strive for the 
 
 heavenly goal.
 
 A SILVER WEDDING. 55 
 
 And never a sign made Harold of the broken 
 
 heart within, 
 For he smothered his love for Elspeth as a black 
 
 and an awful sin ; 
 But she, like a noble woman, came here as the 
 
 outcast's friend, 
 And nursed her with me and Harold right to the 
 
 very end. 
 
 One eve, as the shadows deepened, an 1 we sat by 
 
 the patient's bed, 
 She spoke, in her broken English, and asked us to 
 
 ra: head ; 
 
 She called to her spouse and Elspeth to stand in 
 the fading light, 
 
 her eyi might rest on their faces and be 
 blessed with the holy sight ; 
 
 ng their hands, she joined them, and 
 bade them forgh • her sin, 
 And pray to the Lord of Heaven to pity and take 
 
 her in ; 
 'And when I am dead," she murmured, "let 
 I j our bride 
 
 poke no more till the m . , when slu 
 1 both and
 
 5 6 1>. I LLA DS OF BA B YL ON. 
 
 " To Dick on our silver wedding." They know that 
 
 I've got the gout — 
 They know I'd have been amongst them if the 
 
 doctors would let me out — 
 And down in the sweet green country, where their 
 
 happy lives have flown, 
 They can picture these grimy chambers, where I 
 
 grumble and growl alone. 
 And to-day is their silver wedding — I look at each 
 
 handsome face, 
 There's never a look less tender, and never a 
 
 vanished grace — 
 Give me that bottle, nephew — a fig for what 
 
 doctors say ! — 
 Gout or no gout, here's a bumper to Harold and 
 
 Elspeth Grey !
 
 A LAST LOOK. 
 
 heard him, Joe, I heard him — 
 
 I heard the doctor say 
 My sight was growing weaker, 
 And failing day by day. 
 " She's going blind," he whispered ; 
 
 Yes, darling, it is true ; 
 These eyes will soon have taken 
 Their last long look at you. 
 
 The room is dull and misty, 
 And as I try to gaze 
 
 Tli' ins to fall bet we, mi us 
 
 A thii k and cruel haze. 
 I'm going blind, my darlin; 
 
 Ah ! so. .n t he day must be 
 When these poor eyes will op 
 
 And vainly try to
 
 .S8 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Oh, take my hand, my husband, 
 
 To lead me to the light, 
 And let your dear face linger 
 
 The last thing in my sight — 
 'J hat so I may remember, 
 
 When darkness covers all, 
 'Twas there I last saw, softly, 
 
 God's blessed sunshine fall. 
 
 Cheer up, my dear old sweetheart. 
 
 And brush away your tears, 
 The look I see to-day, love, 
 
 Will linger through the years. 
 For when the veil has fallen, 
 
 To hide you evermore, 
 I want your smile to light me 
 
 Along the gloomy shore. 
 
 I yet can see you, darling — 
 
 Some light there lingers still ; 
 The sun is setting slowly 
 
 Behind the distant hill ; 
 Odd fancies crowd about me 
 
 Now God has let me know 
 My eyes must close for ever 
 
 On all things here below.
 
 A LAST LOOK. 59 
 
 Though twenty years have vanished, 
 
 It seems but yestere'en 
 Since first you wooed and won me 
 
 Among the meadows green ; 
 Here from our cottage window 
 
 I once could see the spot 
 Where grew the yellow cowslip 
 
 And blue forget-me-not. 
 
 But now a strange mist hovers, 
 
 And though I strain my eyes, 
 Beyond my yearning glances 
 
 Tin; dear old meadow lies. 
 I want to see it, darling, 
 
 The meadow by the stream, 
 Where first your loving whisper 
 
 Fulfilled my girlhood's dream. 
 
 So take my hand and guide me, 
 And 1' ad me t.> the air, — 
 
 I want to see tin- world, love, 
 That ( rod h i fair. 
 
 I want to see ill et, 
 
 • And look upon th 
 
 An I bid the sweet, gre< n co 
 ;ood-b) I
 
 60 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 How swift the sun is setting; ! 
 
 It's almost twilight now; 
 I hear, but cannot see, dear, 
 
 The birds upon the bough. 
 Is this our little garden? 
 
 I cannot pierce the gloom, 
 But I can smell the roses — 
 
 They're coming into bloom. 
 
 Stoop down and pluck a rosebud 
 
 You know my favorite tree ; 
 My husband's hand will give me 
 
 The last one I shall see. 
 Ah, Joe, do you remember 
 
 The dear old happy days — 
 Our love among the roses 
 
 In summer's golden blaze? 
 
 I take the rose you give me, 
 
 Its petals damp with dew ; 
 I cent its fragrant odour, 
 
 But scarce can see its hue. 
 In memory of to-night, Joe, 
 
 When dead I'll keep it still ; 
 The rose may fade and wither — 
 
 Our love, dear, never will.
 
 A LAST LOOK. 61 
 
 Quick! Quick ! my footsteps falter ; 
 
 Oh, take me in again ; 
 I cannot bear the air, Joe, 
 
 My poor eyes feel the strain. 
 Home, home, and bring my children, 
 
 And place them at my knee, 
 And let me look upon them 
 
 While yet I've time to see. 
 
 Then take them gently from me, 
 
 And let us be alone : 
 My last fond look, dear husband, 
 
 Musi be for you alone. 
 You've been my dear old sweetheart 
 
 Since we were lass and lad : 
 I've laughed when you were merry, 
 
 And wept when you were sad. 
 
 1 ,vanl to see you v. earing 
 Your old sweel smile to-night. 
 
 I want to take ii w ith me 
 'I o make my darkne ■ ■ light. 
 
 ( d bless you, Joe, for Irving — 
 the dear old look ! 
 
 I'll think ol thai sweei tory 
 When God has clo ed the boi
 
 62 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Joe, fetch me down the picture 
 
 That hangs beside our bed. 
 Ah, love, do you remember 
 
 The day that he lay dead ? 
 Our first-born bonny baby — 
 
 And how we sat and cried, 
 And thought our hearts were broken 
 
 When our sweet darling died ? 
 
 I'd like to see the picture 
 
 Once more, dear, while I may, 
 Though in my heart it lingers 
 
 As though 'twere yesterday. 
 Ah ! many bairns came after, 
 
 But none were like to him. 
 Come closer to me, darling, 
 
 The light is growing dim. 
 
 Come closer — so ; and hold me, 
 
 And press your face to mine. 
 I'm in a land of shadows, 
 
 Where ne'er a light can shine. 
 But with your arm around me, 
 
 What danger need I fear? 
 I'll never need my eyes, Joe, 
 
 While your strong arm is near. 
 
 * * *
 
 A LAST LOOK. 63 
 
 Now, be a brave old darling, 
 
 And promise not to fret ; 
 I saw your face the last, dear, 
 
 And now I've no regret. 
 I saw your face the last, dear — 
 
 God's hand has dealt the blow ; 
 My sight went out at sunset 
 
 A short half -hour ago. 
 
 Now you must be my eyesight, 
 
 Through all the sunless land, 
 And down life's hill we'll wander, 
 
 Like lovers, hand in hand. 
 Till (j<»\ shall lift the curtain 
 
 i'.cyond these realms of pain ; 
 And there, where blind eyes open, 
 
 I'll see your face again.
 
 THE EARL'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 HE stood beside the smiling stream that 
 mirrored back her face, 
 And seemed to say, "Oh weary one, 
 behold thy resting place ! " 
 The rippling water kissed her feet, and murmured, 
 
 " Daughter, rest ; 
 Come lie as in a mother's arms, and sleep upon my 
 breast." 
 
 The river sang its lullaby; her eyelids, drooping 
 
 down, 
 Let fall their fringed curtains o'er hef eyes of hazel 
 
 brown — 
 The sweet brown eyes that looking back beheld the 
 
 cloud of shame, 
 And all her life's wild history writ out in words of 
 
 flame.
 
 THE EARL'S DAUGHTER. 65 
 
 In sin those brown eyes saw the light, but sin of 
 
 high degree ; 
 The daughter of an English earl of noble blood 
 
 was she. 
 In strange weird ways by Fate's big loom our web 
 
 of fortune 's spun, 
 And she was doomed when Phryne's face my lord's 
 
 allegiance won. 
 
 A player wench she had for dam, who made the 
 
 stage a mart, 
 And reared an altar high to vice within the fane of 
 
 art ; 
 She sinned and played, and played to sin — a bold 
 
 and brazen girl 
 Who won — and kept, so rumour says, for three whole 
 
 years the earl. 
 
 And Nell, tin- baby, had his eyes, and he would 
 
 kiss the child ; 
 And when folks praised her pretty face, he looked 
 
 at her and smiled. 
 Bui earls have world-, so wide to roam in of 
 
 noble jo\ 
 He found fre h playthings by and by and lefl his 
 
 • irly toys.
 
 66 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 He sowed his oats and settled down, and took a 
 
 noble dame, 
 And had a daughter born to him to bear her father's 
 
 name ; 
 The player wench was pensioned off, and Nell was 
 
 pensioned too : 
 He washed his hands of wicked things, and started 
 
 life anew. 
 
 A cheque was drawn — a good round sum — and Nell's 
 
 next nurse was one 
 Who'd sit with her the livelong day — a viscount's 
 
 eldest son ; 
 But by and by, as Nellie grew too old to romp 
 
 and play, 
 The mother found a growing girl was sometimes 
 
 in the way. 
 
 She cowed the child and called her "brat"; her 
 
 presence was a tie ; 
 And when poor Nell was ill and weak half hoped 
 
 that she would die; 
 The good round sum the earl had paid, " in full of 
 
 every claim," 
 Was long since spent, but Nell remained poor child 
 
 of sin and shame.
 
 THE EARL'S DAUGHTER. 67 
 
 The years passed on, and Nell was put to shift 
 
 as best she could ; 
 The mother thought the stage might lead her child 
 
 to something good ; 
 She stood half draped in loose burlesques, and 
 
 blushed and lost her head, 
 And trembled when the men came round, and burst 
 
 in tears and fled. 
 
 Then Phryne cursed the weeping Nell, and bade 
 
 her pack and go, 
 And in her passion hit the girl a foul and cruel 
 
 blow, 
 
 That woke the evil passions there ; the slumbering 
 
 devil rose*. 
 Thai night three lovers came to woo; she listened 
 
 and she chose. 
 
 * * * 
 
 To end her sinful life to-day she seeks the waters 
 
 de< p, 
 A gnawing hunger in her heart to close her eyes and 
 
 ep. 
 Too proud to < I" al and rob and lie, her wings are 
 
 broken oon ; 
 The evening shadows cross her path ere ye\ it 
 noon.
 
 68 BA LLA DS OF D. I B J r L ON. 
 
 She stands beside the stream that laves an earl's 
 
 far reaching ground ; 
 She hears a voice, and peers between the hedge 
 
 that runs around ; 
 Then turns away, and cries, "O God! had such a 
 
 lot been mine, 
 I had not e'er been forced to sin, and break Thy 
 
 laws divine." 
 
 Within the grounds a father sat beside his daughter 
 fair, 
 
 And fondly pressed his lips to hers and smoothed 
 
 her glossy hair ; 
 A world of love was in her eyes, as in her girlish 
 
 glee 
 She flunsr her arms about his neck and rested on 
 
 his knee. 
 
 * * * 
 
 That eve the river, flinging back the sunset's ruby 
 
 glow, 
 Bore gently on its glassy breast a sleeper to and 
 
 fro ; 
 It left its burden near his grounds, and there, while 
 
 still it lay, 
 His daughter saw the dreadful sight, and screamed 
 
 and turned away.
 
 THE EARL'S DAUGHTER. 69 
 
 He clasped her close and soothed her fears, then 
 
 bade his menials go — 
 How dared they let a wretched corpse upset his 
 
 darling so ! 
 ' Go float it down," the earl exclaimed, " and leave 
 
 it in the shed ; 
 Then bid the parish people come and fetch away 
 
 their dead." 
 
 He left her living, spurned her dead ; his blood was 
 
 in her veins ; 
 He sinned, and all her weary life she wore the 
 
 felon's chains ; 
 But in the great Recorder's Book, where Nell's 
 
 black life is shown, 
 Against her sins a righteous Judge will put his 
 
 name alone.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 «^> 
 
 l&l 
 
 Ws. 
 
 *^^ 
 
 s^^« 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 i"\ 
 
 o we 
 
 m 
 
 fc 
 
 ™*- v 
 
 |k T( jTPgS 
 
 OSTLER JOE. 
 
 STOOD at eve, as the sun went down, 
 
 by a grave where a woman lies, 
 Who lured men's souls to the shores of 
 sin with the light of her wanton eyes, 
 Who sang the song that the Siren sang on the 
 
 treacherous Lurley height, 
 Whose face was as fair as a summer day, and whose 
 heart was as black as night. 
 
 Yet a blossom I fain would pluck to-day from the 
 
 len above her dust; 
 Not the languorous lily of soulless sin nor the blood- 
 red rose of lust ; 
 But a sweet white blossom of holy love' that grew 
 
 in the one green spot 
 In the arid desert of Phryne's life, where all was 
 parched and hot. 
 
 * * *
 
 OSTLER JOE. 71 
 
 In the summer, when the meadows were aglow 
 
 with blue and red, 
 Joe, the ostler of the Magpie, and fair Annie Smith 
 
 were wed. 
 Plump was Annie, plump and pretty, with a cheek 
 
 as white as snow ; 
 He was anything but handsome was the Magpie's 
 
 ostler, Joe. 
 
 But he won the winsome lassie. They'd a cottage 
 
 and a cow, 
 \nd her matronhood sat lightly on the village 
 beauty's brow. 
 
 Sped the months and came a baby — such a blue- 
 eyed baby boy ! 
 
 Joe was working in the stables when they told him 
 of his joy. 
 
 He v. is rubbing down the horses, and li" give 
 
 them then and there 
 All a spe< ial feed of clover, just in honour of the 
 
 heir : 
 ' been his great ambition, and li • told the 
 
 Thai the would send a baby who might bear 
 
 tin- name ol i
 
 72 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Little Joe the child was christened, and, like 
 
 babies, grew apace ; 
 He'd his mother's eyes of azure and his father's 
 
 honest face. 
 Swift the happy years went over, years of blue and 
 
 cloudless sky ; 
 Love was lord of that small cottage, and the 
 
 tempests passed them by. 
 
 Passed them by for years, then swiftly burst in 
 
 fury o'er their home. 
 Down the lane by Annie's cottage chanced a 
 
 gentleman to roam ; 
 Thrice he came and saw her sitting by the window 
 
 with her child, 
 And he nodded to the baby, and the baby laughed 
 
 and smiled. 
 
 So at last it grew to know him — little Joe was 
 
 nearly four ; 
 He would call the ' pretty gemplun' as he passed 
 
 the open door ; 
 And one day he ran and caught him, and in child's 
 
 play pulled him in, 
 And the baby Joe had prayed for brought about the 
 
 mother's sin.
 
 OSTLER JOE. 73 
 
 'Twas the same old wretched story that for ages 
 
 bards have sung : 
 'Twas a woman weak and wanton and a villain's 
 
 tempting tongue ; 
 'Twas a picture deftly painted for a silly creature's 
 
 eyes 
 Of the Babylonian wonders and the joy that in 
 
 them lies. 
 
 Annie listened and was tempted ; she was tempted 
 
 and she fell, 
 As the angels fell from heaven to the blackest 
 
 depths of hell ; 
 She- was promised wealth and splendour and a 
 
 life of guilty sloth, 
 Yellow gold for child and husband, — an 1 the 
 
 woman left them both. 
 
 Home "no eve came Joe the Ostler with a cheery 
 
 . of ' Wife !' 
 Finding thai which blurred for ever all the story of 
 
 his life. 
 She had left a silly letter, — through the cruel si rawl 
 
 In- pell ; 
 Then he 'it the lonely bed-room, joined his 
 
 hoi ny hands and knelt.
 
 74 ll. M.I. ADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 " \'ow, O Lord, God, forgive her, for she ain't to 
 
 blame ! " he cried ; 
 " For I out t'a seen her trouble, and 'a gone away 
 
 and died. 
 Why, a wench like her — God bless her ! — 'twasn't 
 
 likely as her'd rest 
 With that bonny head for ever on a ostler's ragged 
 
 vest. 
 
 "It was kind o' her to bear me all this long and 
 
 happy time, 
 So for my sake please to bless her, though You 
 
 count her deed a crime ; 
 If so be I don't pray proper, Lord, forgive me ; for 
 
 You see 
 I can talk all right to 'osses, but I'm nervous like 
 
 with Thee." 
 
 Ne'er a line came to the cottage from the woman 
 
 who had flown ; 
 Joe the baby died that winter, and the man was 
 
 left alone. 
 Xe'er a bitter word he uttered, but in silence 
 
 kissed the rod, 
 Saving what he told his horses, saving what he 
 
 told his God.
 
 OSTLER JOE. 75 
 
 Far away in mighty London rose the woman into 
 
 tame, 
 For her beauty won men's homage, and she 
 
 prospered in her shame ; 
 Quick from lord to lord she flitted, higher still each 
 
 prize she won, 
 And her rivals paled beside her as the stars beside 
 
 the sun. 
 
 Next she made the stage her market, and she 
 
 dr Art's temple down 
 
 To the level of a show place for the outcasts of the 
 
 town. 
 And tl -lie had given to poor Ostler Joe for 
 
 nought 
 With their gold and costly jewels rich and titled 
 * lovers bought. 
 
 Wenl the years with flyin; iteps while hi 
 
 LS at its height ; 
 
 m the darkness came on swiftly, and the 
 ing turned to night. 
 Shattered strength and faded beauty tore the 
 
 I. in .in her brow ; 
 
 ( )| the th' .'.ho had woi one 
 
 ie near her now.
 
 76 BA LLA DS OF B. f li ) r L ON. 
 
 Broken down in health and fortune, men forgot her 
 
 very name, 
 Till the news that she was dying woke the echoes 
 
 of her fame ; 
 And the papers in their gossip mentioned how an 
 
 " actress" lay 
 Sick to death in humble lodgings, growing weaker 
 
 every day. 
 
 One there was who read the story in a far-off 
 
 country place, 
 And that night the dying woman woke and looked 
 
 upon his face. 
 Once again the strong arms clasped her that had 
 
 clasped her long ago, 
 And the weary head lay pillowed on the breast of 
 
 Ostler Joe. * 
 
 All the past had he forgotten, all the sorrow and the 
 
 shame ; 
 He had found her sick and lonely, and his wife he 
 
 now could claim. 
 Since the grand folks who had known her one and 
 
 all had slunk away, 
 He could clasp his long-lost darling, and no man 
 
 would say him nay.
 
 OSTLER JOE. 77 
 
 In his arms death found her lying, in his arms her 
 
 spirit fled ; 
 And his tears came down in torrents as he knelt 
 
 beside her dead. 
 Never once his love had faltered through her base 
 
 unhallowed life ; 
 And the stone above her ashes bears the honoured 
 
 name of wife. 
 
 * * * 
 
 That's the blossom 1 lain would pluck to-day from 
 
 the garden above her dust ; 
 Not the languorous lily of soulless sin nor the blood- 
 
 of lust; 
 But a sweet white blossom of holy love that grew 
 
 in the one green spot 
 In the arid di hryne's life, where all was 
 
 parched and hot.
 
 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 ARK ! It is over ! The organ peals, 
 The Bishop has mumbled the final word 
 Over the chancel the sunlight steals, 
 Mocking the sob the bridesmaids heard. 
 Here, in the sight of a God above, 
 
 A Lord has taken a fair young bride ; 
 Here they have sworn to honour and love, 
 And each of them knew that the other lied. 
 
 This is a market where slaves are sold ; 
 
 Rare is the slave that they sell to-day. 
 They barter her sweet white flesh for gold 
 
 To a noble sheep who has gone astray. 
 For rank and jewels and vast estates 
 
 They forced his badge on her dainty hand, 
 Sealing her doom to the worst of fates — 
 
 Here in a church in a Christian Ian!.
 
 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 79 
 
 My lord the Bishop, he bowed his head, 
 
 And rolled his eyes with a mellowed grace, 
 As the beautiful words in the book he read, 
 
 And a sunbeam fell on his saintly face — 
 His lordship knew of the bridegroom's fame — ■ 
 
 He knew of the women, the cards, and wine ; 
 But up from the altar he sent his name 
 
 To be specially blessed by the King divine. 
 
 II : gazed on the face of the high-born maid, 
 
 And saw the mark where the tears had been ; 
 He knew that a daughter had wept and prayed, 
 
 He kinw that a mother had feared a scene — 
 Had torn herself from the weeping girl, 
 
 Whose love was away o'er the distant - 
 And had sold her child to a titled churl 
 
 Who had just got round from a bad d. t. 
 
 B 1 I. from the 'lour-, with the ra 1 rew ! 
 
 Line the p ■ on either side ! 
 
 Hide her shame from the people's view ! 
 
 I lurry her off, the trembling bride ! 
 There isnM a man in the motley • rowd 
 
 Bui l.inr,-. '.1 her owner's evil life ; 
 And they tell the tale of his sins aloud, 
 
 Till the wantons pity the new-made wife.
 
 So BA LLA DS OF //. / B \ 'L ON. 
 
 The air is gay with the wedding chim 
 
 Over the town the news they tell, 
 That a Bishop has blessed the worst of crimes, 
 
 And now they are tolling a maiden's knell. 
 His lordship follows his dainty prize; 
 
 Now whip the horses, and speed awav ! 
 Look at the tears in her swollen eyes — 
 
 Pity, my lord, for your helpless prey ! 
 
 * * * 
 
 Over the seas on a barbarous coast, 
 
 A soldier leads in a desperate light 
 A handful of men 'gainst a swarming host, 
 
 And the battle is waged from dawn till night. 
 One to a hundred still they stand, 
 
 Fighting like heroes, and win at last; 
 And the news goes home to the distant land, 
 
 And his fame is spread with a trumpet-blast. 
 
 She hears the story a week new wed, 
 
 For his gallant deed is on every tongue ; 
 Oft for him have her prayers been said, 
 
 Oft for him have her hands been wrung. 
 He was the hero she loved so long, 
 
 His was the image that fdled her heart ; , 
 Ah, she had done him a grievous wrong ! 
 
 Well, it was best they were leagues apart.
 
 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 81 
 
 She thought of the soldier who fought so well, 
 
 And then of the roue whose rings she wore ; 
 She hears the tales that the gossips tell 
 
 Of the evil life that he led before. 
 She hears the tales and she doubts them not, 
 
 For once again he has broken out ; 
 He comes to his couch like a drunken sot, 
 
 And leaves strange letters and cartes about. 
 
 o v 
 
 What does it matter one jot to her? 
 
 Let him go to the bad at his own mad pace; 
 No word she spoke would her lord deter ; 
 
 He'd laugh with scorn in her pleading face. 
 She winced but once — at the season's height 
 
 A creature sat by her husband's side, 
 And drove the ponies in all men's sight 
 
 His friends had given the new-made bride. 
 
 r a flush on her marble brow, 
 ( >nly a curl of her faultless lip ; 
 Tin- world's tongue wags with tin- story now, 
 And her lord iff <>n a l< -n;;l liy trip. 
 
 All men pity, and some "I" them speak, 
 
 And sigh o'er the wrongs of the reigning belle; 
 The papers have paragraphs week by week, 
 
 And wider and wider the sandals swell. 
 
 G
 
 32 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Her carte is hung in the West-end shops, 
 
 With her name in full on the white below; 
 And all day long there's a big crowd stops 
 
 To look at the lady who's " all the go." 
 Queen is she of her set to-day, 
 
 In the realms of fashion she reigns alone; — 
 She should hear what the coarse-tongued rabble say, 
 
 Now the price she paid for her name is known. 
 
 And not alone do the rabble speak ; 
 
 There's something Society whispers too — 
 It was all the talk of the Ascot week : 
 
 The scandal's delightfully fresh and new. 
 The lover who went to the wars is back — 
 
 Back with the fame which his sword had won ; 
 And of more than malice the stories smack 
 
 That round on the lips of the gossips run. 
 
 Wherever is Venus, there is Mars. 
 
 Her face lights up when he comes about- 
 Ascot gave matter for spiteful " pars " 
 
 And Henley has put it beyond a doubt. 
 Her love shines out through her splendid eyes ; 
 
 Love is a passion, or right or wrong : 
 Pity the woman who wildly tries 
 
 To stem a torrent, yet floats along.
 
 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. 
 
 83 
 
 Gaze on the photo of " Beauty " hung — 
 
 Hung in the shops for cads to buy. 
 Little you dream how her heart is wrung, 
 
 Little you dream how that breast can sigh. 
 Lei us think of the Turk with a feeling heart, 
 
 Who sells his slaves in the wanton East ; 
 I ! we have mothers who hold a mart, 
 
 And "Beauty" is sold to the wealthy "Beast."
 
 A LEGEND OF LOVE. 
 
 S it true, this dainty story t 
 
 Is it true — ah, who shall say ? 
 In the brighter noonday glory 
 Morning shadows melt away. 
 Poets' fancies woven gaily, 
 Cruel fingers tear apart ; 
 And in judgment Brain sits daily 
 On the children of the heart. 
 
 Is it true ? O bid defiance 
 
 To the doubters' cruel eyes — 
 Men who take as toys of science 
 
 All the glories of the skies. 
 Better far the foolish savage 
 
 Who on twenty Gods will call, 
 Than the scholar doubts can ravage, 
 
 Till he knows no God at all.
 
 A LEGEXD OF LOVE. 85 
 
 O'er the leagues of stormy water 
 
 Came a story on the breeze ; 
 From a cruel field of slaughter 
 
 It was borne across the seas. 
 'Mid the roar of mighty Babel 
 
 It was whispered far and wide ; 
 'Twas a tearful tender fable 
 
 Of a hero who had died. 
 
 Years ago, in times called olden — 
 
 'Tis a legend, mind, I tell — 
 From his throne, high reared and golden, 
 
 1 ist to earth, a ruler fell. 
 Fought by foreign foes and worsted, 
 
 Mad with grief, and mad with shame, 
 For his blood the people thirsted, 
 
 And heaped curses on his name. 
 
 Far away, an e tile broken, 
 
 Shorn of all his pomp and pride, 
 I 1 I his race's token 
 
 To hi only son ; and died. 
 1 Med afar, by all unhe< ded 
 
 Who of j ore had benl the kn( ■ ; 
 And he le< ; leep he n< 
 
 In hi 1 tomb a<
 
 86 BALLADS OF BABY LO 
 
 To that son the right descended 
 
 Still to count himself a king; 
 Courtiers still his steps attended, 
 
 Doubting not what time would bring ; 
 And he kept the grand tradition 
 
 Of his proud Imperial race : 
 " Bide your time," was Caesar's mission; 
 
 " You shall fill your father's place." 
 
 Yet the waves of time they bore him 
 
 Little nearer to the throne : 
 Blood, he said, should not restore him, 
 
 But his people's love alone. 
 Not for him the pathway gory, 
 
 That his hero-fathers trod ; 
 He would keep his whole life-story 
 
 Fit for eyes of man and God. 
 
 So he grew among the strangers 
 
 Till he came to man's estate, 
 Then he sought afar the dangers 
 
 That beset a soldier's fate. 
 Why? Ah, whisper, gentle breezes, 
 
 Ye that come across the sea, 
 With the tender tale it pleases 
 
 Cruel Fate to send by thee !
 
 A LEGEND OF LOVE. 87 
 
 He had loved a high-born maiden, 
 
 Youngest daughter of a Queen ; 
 Yet his heart with grief was laden — 
 
 Shadows crept their loves between. 
 Fancy cast a dream-spell o'er him ; 
 
 Then the ghosts of history came — 
 Spread his race's past before him, 
 
 While in blood they wrote his name. 
 
 Lines of upraised daggers gleaming, 
 
 Pointed ever at his heart ; 
 Crowned at last, though in his dreaming, 
 
 He was playing Caesar's part, 
 n he clasped his queen, to save her 
 
 From the mob who sought her life; 
 Just one wild embrace he gave her ; 
 
 Ami then fell the fatal knife. 
 
 I:. i' k In- thrust the dream appalling, 
 While with ashen fa< e he swore 
 
 I [<■ would list id duty's < ailing, 
 Bui would think ol love no more. 
 
 I ) .,\ 11 he • 1 his hope for ever, 
 
 Shunned tin- maiden's tender ey< ; 
 
 Heart v.< re wrung in thai endeavour — 
 1 . ; ■ . w ould all unbidden rii
 
 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 One short word had he but spoken, 
 
 His had been the maiden's hand ; 
 In her eyes he read the token, 
 
 He could see the promised land. 
 Love that's checked is love the stronger ; 
 
 Should he bid her be his mate ? 
 God forbid that he should wrong- her! 
 
 She should know a happier fate. 
 
 He was heir to pomp and splendour ; 
 
 Hope might dawn for him at last ; 
 Fiercest foes might yet surrender : 
 
 But the fatal die was cast. 
 Comes his dirge across the billows ; 
 
 Sets his gentle star for ave. 
 Death his crownless head now pillows — 
 
 He has flung his life away. 
 
 Came a whisper o'er the ocean, 
 
 He had sought a soldier's death ; 
 And to seal a life's devotion, 
 
 Gave her land his latest breath. 
 Reckless there he courted danger — 
 
 And the tale is far and wide, 
 How the youth, to fear a stranger, 
 
 Death had wooed and won for bride. 
 * * *
 
 A LEGEND OF LOVE. 
 
 89 
 
 Is it true, this legend olden, 
 
 Or some poet's idle dream, 
 Who has sought, in garments golden, 
 
 Thus to dress a dainty theme ? 
 If aright they tell his story, 
 
 All his race he soars above ; 
 They are men who die for glory, 
 
 'Twas a god who died for love.
 
 FORGOTTEN— A LAST INTERVIEW. 
 
 HARLEY, I'm glad to see you! I 
 thought you'd forgotten me quite ; 
 It's rarely I see an actor, and it's always 
 a welcome sight. 
 And how goes the show this Christmas? You're 
 
 making a name, I see; 
 Does anyone ever wonder and ask what's become 
 
 of me? 
 There, don't nod your head to please me ; why, it's 
 
 years since I left the stage ; 
 Five years, at the least, old fellow — I'm one of a 
 
 bygone age. 
 And, lying here sick and weary, and worn with the 
 
 ceaseless pain, 
 I wonder if folks remember my seasons at Diury 
 Lane.
 
 FORGOTTEN— A LA ST INTER VIE IV g i 
 
 Whenever the Lane tried Shakespeare, I was one 
 
 of the leading men ; 
 You saw me as Hamlet, Charley, the night that I 
 
 had my Ben. 
 I was reckoned a fairish actor, and the public liked 
 
 me well, 
 Though, maybe, they'd call me stagey, now Shake- 
 speare must suit the swell. 
 But then I had big receptions, and I wasn't afraid 
 
 to shout ; 
 'Twas before the fine French notion of "acting 
 
 charades" came out. 
 I'd my name on the six-feet posters, and big in the 
 
 I >rury bills ; 
 1 think of it often now, lad, and my poor old bosom 
 
 thrills. 
 
 I , and thefootlij house 
 
 and the crowded pil ; 
 I , a n he tr th bouts and the stamping thai tell me 
 
 l'\. a hit ; 
 
 I , an e th< a of faces flash white as I cr< 
 
 Ah me I bul those triumph , < they v 
 
 few and too far I I'.
 
 9 2 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 I was always weak and ailing, and I hadn't the best 
 of luck ; 
 
 I got the fame that I worked for, but somehow it 
 never stuck. 
 
 There wasn't a run on Shakespeare, or the manage- 
 ment broke down, 
 
 And I had to take to the country, and work from 
 town to town. 
 
 So I couldn't have saved much money — not with a 
 
 wife to keep 
 And three young children, Charley — that's one of 
 
 them there asleep. 
 The wife she died one winter — she died of a broken 
 
 heart ; 
 She'd to play in a play called "Troubles," and hers 
 
 was a killing part. 
 And I was left with the children to do the best I 
 
 could, 
 But I got in the bills in London, and that winter 
 
 God was good. 
 I made a success, and was lucky, the play ran half 
 
 a year, 
 So I paid up my back debts bravely — and then I 
 
 was taken queer.
 
 FOR G O TTEN—A LA ST INTER VIE W. 93 
 
 One clay I was on the hoardings, in letters quite two 
 
 feet high, 
 And the next I was lying here, lad, and they thought 
 
 that I should die ; 
 But I lingered and mended slowly, and here I am 
 
 lying still — 
 With the last of my savings vanished, and a terrible 
 
 doctor's bill. 
 Oh ! it's hard when the black ox bellows, and comes 
 
 with his cruel tread 
 To scatter our earthly treasures, and crush our 
 
 ambition dead ; 
 To know that the world we worked for has never a 
 
 thought to spare, 
 But worships a brand-new hero who reigns in the 
 
 footlights' glare. 
 
 Charley, I'm glad to see you, for there's something 
 
 I want to say, 
 Now I know that the Lord has called me, and my 
 
 life ebbs fasl away. 
 It haunts me asle< p and waking, and it fills me with 
 
 namele fear; 
 What will become of my darlings when 1 am no 
 
 longer her. .
 
 94 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 An actor is soon forgotten — he reigns as a kinsr 
 
 awhile : 
 He's feted, and cheered, and honoured, and he basks 
 
 in the public's smile. 
 Dut the moment his work is over, and gone is the 
 
 power to please. 
 He has drained the cup of pleasure and come to 
 
 the bitter lees. 
 
 Then he whom the thousands greeted with a tempest 
 
 of hearty cheers, 
 Who passed as a conquering hero 'mid the homage 
 
 of crowded tiers, 
 May lie in his bitter anguish, and moan with the 
 
 ceaseless pain, 
 With never a word to soothe him, and he cries for 
 
 help in vain. 
 Oh, it's hard to be thus forgotten ! to know, as the 
 
 years roll by, 
 You are fading from all remembrance, you who 
 
 had climbed so high ; 
 It's hard, in the sad night watches, to think how you 
 
 once could play, 
 And to know that the curtain's fallen which hides 
 
 you, alas ! for aye.
 
 FORGOTTEN— A LAST INTERVIEW. 95 
 
 O for the tire that nerved me when I trod the busy 
 
 scene, 
 In the glory of plume and helmet and my armour's 
 
 silver sheen ! 
 
 for the mad wild rapture as I fought the mimic- 
 
 fight, 
 And the house rose nightly at me and yelled with a 
 fierce delight ! 
 
 1 am watched by the eager thousands, and their hot 
 
 flushed faces turn — 
 As I cry in a voice of thunder that the traitor's 
 
 threat I spurn ; 
 Then forth flies my white steel flashing, and I smite 
 
 at the tyrant — so, 
 And he reels to the wings and staggers 'neath the 
 
 weight of the ringing blow. 
 
 Hark at the people, Charley! — hark at the mighty 
 
 roar ! 
 It floats iii my ears like music lhat shall come again 
 
 no more. 
 Prop me a l>it with the pillows — I'm faint, and my 
 
 sight gmws dim ; 
 The thoughl of the pa 1 unnerves me, and [tremble 
 
 in 1 . limb.
 
 9 6 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 I've lain here a helpless cripple, so long in this dull 
 
 back room, 
 That I've grown half a corpse already ; this is but 
 
 a living tomb. 
 
 Oh, it's cruel to lie and ponder, as the twilight slowly 
 
 falls, 
 On the scene that lies out yonder and the crowd in 
 
 Drury's walls. 
 
 I can hear the soft sweet music, I can see the dear 
 
 old baize, 
 And I look in the morning paper through the list of 
 
 the promised plays. 
 Then my eyes are closed in fancy, and right through 
 
 the walls I see, 
 And the lamps in the Strand are lighted, and the 
 
 folks come two and three, 
 Till a big crowd slowly gathers and stretches across 
 
 the street ; 
 Then the pit door opens sharply, and I hear the 
 
 tramping feet ; 
 And the quiet pro's pass onward to the stage-door 
 
 up the court — 
 Ah ! I feel like a dying schoolboy, who watches his 
 
 comrades' sport.
 
 FORGOTTEN— A LAST INTERVIEW. 97 
 
 I've done with the stage for ever, but I'll love it till 
 
 I die. 
 Charley, one word, old fellow, before we say good- 
 bye. 
 It's time for you to be going ; let me look at your 
 
 face once more ; 
 You'll be on the boards directly, and you'll hear the 
 
 welcome roar. 
 I've a secret, lad, to tell you — I've kept it up till 
 
 now — 
 But I know whose hand is laying the chills on my 
 
 aching brow ; 
 I smother my pride to ask it ; but, Charley, when 
 
 I am dead, 
 Don't let me think my children may know the want 
 
 of bread. 
 
 My poor little hoard of savings has melted long 
 
 ago— 
 
 a secret I meant, God willing, the world 
 
 should never know. 
 I've schemed and I've planned and worried, and 
 
 parted with all we had, 
 And kept tli" poor home together with the help of 
 
 my eldest lad. 
 
 I!
 
 9 8 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 When I'm gone you may tell my story : how, keep- 
 ing the wolf at bay, 
 
 In torture of soul and body, the poor old actoi 
 lay, 
 
 Forgotten by all his fellows. But, let it go far and 
 wide, 
 
 'Twas the thought of his starving children that con- 
 quered the father's pride.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 SgS£¥BftKg#tt 
 
 ^3&jg39¥^§s$£, 
 
 
 
 §Pl§!i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wm&S^r 
 
 l&A^siM&ksti 
 
 3*t^ 
 
 !Hi 
 
 ?C**"T^C* 
 
 $1 
 
 Sill 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 THK LIGHTS OF LONDON TOWN.* 
 
 ■HE way was long and weary, 
 But gallantly they strode, 
 A country lad and lassie, 
 Along the heavy road. 
 The night was dark and stormy, 
 But blithe of heart were they, 
 For shining in the distance 
 I he Lights ol London lay. 
 gleaming lamps of London that gem the City's 
 
 i rown, 
 What fortune-, lie within you, O Lights of London 
 Town. 
 
 1.. I. ..in In. lil, :■ ii • I publi li'-.l y unci Co., 242, 
 
 . w .
 
 102 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 The years passed on and found them 
 
 Within the mighty fold, 
 The years had brought them trouble, 
 
 But brought them little gold. 
 Oft from their garret window, 
 On long still summer nights, 
 They'd seek the far-off country 
 Beyond the London lights. 
 O mocking lamps of London, what weary eyes 
 
 look down, 
 And mourn the day they saw you, O Lights of 
 London Town. 
 
 With faces worn and weary, 
 That told of sorrow's load, 
 One day a man and woman 
 
 Crept down a country road. 
 They sought their native village, 
 
 Heart-broken from the fray ; 
 Yet shining still behind them, 
 The Lights of London lay. 
 O cruel lamps of London, if tears your light could 
 
 drown, 
 Your victims' eyes would weep them, O Lights of 
 London Town.
 
 SENSATIONAL SCIENCE. 
 
 HE rage for knowledge grows apace, 
 A pace that quite terrific is ; 
 To-day the whole of Britain's race 
 Devoutly scientific is. 
 
 No more in cloisters science roams, 
 No tyrant gives a knock to it; 
 
 It writes, we rush to buy its tomes ; 
 It lectures, and we flock to it. 
 
 For science now our girls and boys 
 Their love for thee recant, C) mime ! 
 
 '\'\\<- clown is shunned fin- higher joys, 
 And Tyndall beats the pantomime. 
 
 I he " Institution " lectures draw 
 I he babes who on< e loved merriment ; 
 I tiny tots can lisp the law 
 I li.it governs eat fi experiment.
 
 io 4 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Our laughing girls give up their play, 
 
 All bitten by the mania 
 To hear what Huxley has to say 
 
 On Patagonian crania. 
 
 Ethnology bids croquet stand. 
 
 And cast aside lawn tennis is 
 For Evolution's doctrines and 
 
 The charms of Biogenesis. 
 
 On Life and Death and Hell (0 fie ! ) 
 These famous men enlighten us ; 
 
 They wing their flight so very high 
 They positively frighten us. 
 
 On all our cherished creeds they fall, 
 Without the least apology, 
 
 And hurl the bowl that scatters all 
 The ninepins of theology. 
 
 We sit enthralled when Huxley shows, 
 Or writes about, in articles, 
 
 The stream of life that ebbs and flows 
 In protoplasmic particles.
 
 SENSATIONAL SCIENCE. 105 
 
 And when the microscope reveals 
 What lies in specks gelatinous. 
 
 The timid maiden almost squeals, 
 
 " O dear, to'think we've that in us !" 
 
 Then Darwin says that our papas — 
 (Is't science this or lunacy ? ) — 
 
 Ran up the trees with our mammas 
 In man's old world, Baboonacy. 
 
 Our girls, from views so wild as these, 
 Half angry and half funky rise ; 
 
 To say they come from chimpanzees 
 Does make the darlings' monkey rise. 
 
 " Art-culture" leads a giddy throng, 
 Who ape the strict aesthetical, 
 
 And think tin; " pretty " must be wrong, 
 The " tidy" quite heretical. 
 
 The critic's jargon, quickly caught, 
 
 I , lisped by -iris at boarding-school I 
 And Art's at present largely taught 
 
 According to the " ho.u ding-school."
 
 io6 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Grim Ruskin frowns and hurls his darts, 
 And lifts his voice to lecture all 
 
 On painting, sculpture, and the arts, 
 And topics architectural. 
 
 In Ruskin's page all dip awhile, 
 For quaint and clever Ruskin is ; 
 
 As " pitching in " pervades his style, 
 The world of readers thus kin is. 
 
 Like Tyndall, Huxley, Darwin, he 
 
 Must now and then his quarrels have ; 
 
 But all of them the great B.P. 
 
 Encrowned with lavish laurels have. 
 
 Explain, O Truth, why men like these 
 
 Are heroes educational ! 
 Miss Truth replies, " Why, if you please, 
 
 Because they're so sensational !"
 
 Ben-" - " 
 
 K 4i$M 
 
 t; /" N^wBk 
 
 SsK&, 
 
 
 CI 
 
 
 s^^'wbftk^ 
 
 
 
 THE BUTTERCUP'S EXPLANATION. 
 
 HAPPENED last week by the merest of 
 
 chances 
 To wander at noon near a sweet little spot, 
 When the May sun was casting its warmest of 
 glances 
 And making the baa-lambs believe it was hot. 
 It's true that the joke lasted only a moment, 
 
 For just as a buttercup lifted its head 
 To see what its sudden sensation of glow meant, 
 Young Phoebus grew frightened and hastily fl<- 1. 
 
 1 fancied I noticed that buttercup's petals 
 
 A ume an undoul>t<-d expression of scorn, 
 For even a butter* up's feelings it nettles 
 
 I o find that our springl ide of sunshine is shorn. 
 In mood philosophic, the why and the wherefore 
 
 ( m all thai attra< ts my attention 1 - eek ; 
 tind on the 9tate ol the weather I therefore 
 
 Invited that flowerei freely to peak.
 
 108 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 " You ask me," it answered, " my private conclusion 
 
 Respecting these obstinate fits of the sun ; 
 Now I think, though it may be an empty delusion, 
 
 That science the worst of the mischief has done. 
 You know there's a theory — Huxley's and Ty ndall's — 
 
 That the whole of mankind and the animate world 
 Take their life from the heat which his majesty kindles, 
 
 And, losing it, all would to chaos be hurled ? 
 
 " I guess the sun's heard that his sway is despotic, 
 
 The words of the savants have come to his ears, 
 No longer earth's lover with vigour quixotic, 
 
 Now seldom among us his lordship appears. 
 Like the swell who presides at a charity dinner, 
 
 He fancies his ' form' is so awfully good ; 
 And feels with the pride of a privileged sinner 
 
 He's much too important to come when he should."
 
 LITTLE JIM. 
 
 UR little Jim 
 Was such a limb 
 His mother scarce could manage 
 
 him. 
 eyes were blue, 
 And looked you through, 
 And seemed to say, 
 " I'll have my way ! " 
 
 I lis age was six, 
 I lis saucy trirks 
 
 1 ;ut made you smile, 
 Though all the while 
 You said, " You limb, 
 
 You u i< ked Jim, 
 
 I;.- quiet, do ' "
 
 no 
 
 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Poor little Jim ! 
 Our eyes are dim 
 When soft and low we speak of him. 
 No clatt'ring shoe 
 Goes running through 
 The silent room, 
 Now wrapped in gloom. 
 So still he lies, 
 With fast-shut eyes, 
 Xo need to say, 
 -Mas! to-day, 
 "You little limb, 
 You baby Jim, 
 
 Be quiet, do!"
 
 A COMMON OCCURRENCE. 
 
 HAD a dream the other night — 
 A vision I should rather say — 
 In which I climbed to fortune's height 
 In quite a sudden sort of way. 
 When half asleep and half awake 
 
 A Hash of inspiration came, 
 And showed me something that would make 
 A boundless wealth and lasting fame. 
 
 I think I hit upon a plan 
 
 Of doing thing long decreed 
 
 A I' at impossible to man, 
 
 ( ii vvhii fa he itood in spe< ial need. 
 It might have l><'<-n to make a • 
 
 At twopence per the thousand feet, 
 ( )r farthing dinners lor the mass 
 
 To take the pla< e ol butchers' meat.
 
 ii j BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 I know that in my semi-dream 
 
 I saw the thing as clear as noon, 
 With not a hitch in all the scheme, 
 
 Which gave the world a priceless boon. 
 'Twas no inventor's fancy task, 
 
 But simple as the ABC; 
 Yet now I beat my brow and ask, 
 
 What could that splendid notion be ? 
 
 For days and days I've taxed my brain 
 
 To bring that blessed vision back, 
 But all my efforts are in vain, 
 
 I can't get Fancy on the track. 
 A chance of fortune, so they say, 
 
 Comes once to all men here below, 
 Mine caught me napping, passed away, 
 
 And what it was I ne'er shall know.
 
 THE POLICEMAN'S TALE. 
 
 AFTER CHAUCER — 500 YEARS. 
 
 CONSTABEL one nighte that it didde 
 
 rayne 
 Both cattes and dogges, and pytchforkes 
 too, was fayne 
 Hymsel within a taverne to betake, 
 lii flesi li to drie, and eke hys thyrste to slake. 
 And there t u 1 many a pleasaunt carle he founde 
 In barr-parloure a grogge-bowle seaten rounde, 
 Y-lik<- hymsel who'd soughten herbergage 
 Ontil ye itorme its furie sholde assuaj 
 i anne went rounde and pypes of claye were litte, 
 
 hone y-didde whal seemed hym rytte, 
 li! whin no wight colde hearen hymsel speke. 
 i in < heke, 
 
 1 this h into them plat and playne : 
 
 woldeo bide onl il ye rayne
 
 ii4 BA LLADS OF BA B YL ON. 
 
 Hath stayed itsel, in sooth, then baren ye 
 With les dispute and more tranquillitie. 
 To passe ye time I trowe it wolde be wel, 
 An everichone in tourne a tayle sholde tel, 
 And thilke wight who in hys taske do fayle 
 Shal paye his comperes rounde in moisty ayle." 
 Then sotte he doune; the guestes cried " Y-wis,' 
 And caste lottes who firste sholde doen this. 
 Ye Constabel ye longest wispe drewe, 
 And thus beganne withouten more ado. 
 
 YE CONSTABEL HIS TAYLE. 
 
 Whilom whan newe to ye force I came 
 
 And modest was nor uppe to everich game, 
 
 Nor wot for naught that I might laye a hande 
 
 On any common carle in Englelande. 
 
 It fell one nighte that it was drear and wette 
 
 (My beate was in ye pleasaunt Haimaurkette), 
 
 A manne I spied y-fallen on ye grounde, 
 
 And straighte didde kikke hym for to bring hym 
 
 rounde; 
 And whan maugre my kikkes no signe he mayd, 
 Hym through ye streete I by hys heeles conveyed, 
 And to the Stacioun did hym dragge, the where 
 Ye Sergeaunt straight y-clapt hym in a chayre;
 
 THE POLICEMAN'S TALE. 115 
 
 But as he wolde ne speke, ne ope hys eyes, 
 Though with our beltes we hym did chasteyse, 
 Eftsoons, we felled him ; he of drinke did smelle, 
 So hym we casten in ye tosspottes celle. 
 
 Now whan that morne was come much was I payned 
 To finde this caitiffe on hys bakke remayned. 
 In vaine by bearde I swinked hym to and fro ; 
 He wolde ne smyle, ne answour " aye " ne " noe," 
 But stille he laye with eyen fast y-shet, 
 And on hys legges I colde him no way get. 
 
 I hayled a cabbe and stecked hym on ye seate, 
 Than with hym drove to Courte of Bowes-streete ; 
 
 n ye dokke I stecked hym bolte uprite, 
 
 les did recyte. 
 How that I founde ye gaillard on ye grounde, 
 And that sin' then hys tongue he hed not founde. 
 "Thy name?" freined Judge, and set on hym hys 
 
 ev 
 And still ye carle vouchsafed no replye. 
 '• He hammes ill'-," ye Judge did shoute; 
 
 " l be highte, we'll - ee this mattere outti 
 
 Y< li echi ! criSd with amayze 
 
 larry! thys carle's been deade* all two -Lives." 
 
 II Consl bel rod looked aboute, 
 
 1 !<■ a merrie shoute ; 
 
 1 2
 
 n6 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 But everich fayce was blakke, and one manne rose 
 And shoke hys fiste beneath ye peeler's nose, 
 And cryed that it was shame in Christen lande 
 Such fools should holde mennes lives in their hande. 
 " Graunt-mercy for yr tayle, gode Sir," quod he, 
 " It showth what doltes are in auctoritie." 
 And than he tolde how he hymsel hadde sene 
 A manne nigh deade tway constabels betwene, 
 Who shoke hym wel and called hym dronken loon, 
 And kikked hym with iron-tipped shoon. 
 By this ye rayne had ceased, which, whan they knew, 
 Ye guestes rose and went outte two by two. 
 Ye Constabel was called to stoppe a fraye, 
 So drank his ayle and wente another waye.
 
 AN ASPIRATION. 
 
 WOULD I might have had the luck 
 To live some million years ago, 
 Ere man emerging from the ruck 
 Contrived so many things to know ; 
 Ere sense of sin could mar his rest, 
 
 And laws had not invented crimes. 
 No qualms of conscience life opprest 
 Say those who write of early times. 
 
 The world was once a baking ball 
 
 Of dirt and other nasty things, 
 And t In - 1» then- were no men at all, 
 
 So < lever Mr. Tyndall sings. 
 I'll follow back creation's scale, 
 
 And wish I had rxistotl then, 
 A shapeless something with a tail, 
 
 A shallow mudbank for my den.
 
 1 1 8 BA LLA DS OF BABYL ON. 
 
 These monsters lived a thousand years 
 
 In one delightful semi-doze, 
 Untouched by either hopes or fears 
 
 Amid formation's thousand throes. 
 They wallowed on in lazy mood 
 
 With indolent, half-open eye, 
 And jaws agape to catch the food 
 
 The sluggish stream brought floating by. 
 
 The cake got harder, and the earth 
 
 With each new layer fitter grew 
 To give a noble creature birth 
 
 Till men at last its forest knew. 
 They tilled the long untortured soil, 
 
 And warred against the prowling beasts, 
 Till life became one long turmoil 
 
 Of work and sport and bloody feasts. 
 
 As onward still the ages rolled 
 
 Came Culture with its blasting breath, 
 To bid the ills of life unfold 
 
 And give new pangs and fears to death. 
 With weakened muscles, quickened nerves, 
 
 With aching limbs and heated brain, 
 Our race to-day from nature swerves, 
 
 And life becomes an overstrain.
 
 AX ASPIRATION. 119 
 
 Ami when the strife was at its height, 
 
 My span of wild unrest began, 
 Fate pounced upon this luckless wight 
 
 And set him here a modern man. 
 A worried, bustled, nervous thing, 
 
 A victim of the age of steam ; 
 With tearful eyes and hands that wring, 
 
 Of pre-historic times I dream. 
 
 Kind Fortune come, my woes assuage, 
 
 Bend down and mark a modern's moan, 
 And bear me through the golden age, 
 
 Through times of Iron, Bronze, and Stone ! 
 Back, back before the men with tails, 
 
 A million years before the Flood, 
 To where the search of scieni e fails, 
 
 An me bappy in the mud.
 
 IN THE HALL. 
 
 OME in New Year and wipe your feet, 
 And shake the snow that's clinging, 
 I'm glad the little man to meet 
 For whom the bells are ringing. 
 You bow your head, and smirk and smile, 
 
 And squeeze my hand the tighter ; 
 Your honest eyes look free from guile — 
 You could not be politer. 
 
 I know the words your lips would form, 
 
 I've heard the greeting often — 
 " I come as sunshine after storm, 
 
 Your recent blows to soften." 
 Bah ! foolish boy, you'll learn to strike, 
 
 Or e'er your boyhood mellows ; 
 The years, alas ! are all alike — 
 
 A band of wicked fellows.
 
 UNDERTONES. 
 
 BY A LUNATIC LAUREATE. 
 
 HERE'S a feeling that comes with the 
 daze of joy 
 And goes with the knights of grief — 
 t stands on the top of a baby buoy, 
 And floats with an anchor chief. 
 It rides on the back of a noted Bill, 
 
 And lights where your collars fray; 
 It whispers in accents loud and shrill — 
 To-morrow succeeds to-day. 
 
 We con tip- lessons of life betimes 
 
 In the lea an open glade ; 
 
 The fro I on the window writes its rimes, 
 
 We live and we learn be trayed. 
 'I he coals we heat and the apes we were 
 
 Are gone where the Ru isians sleigh. 
 The moral is blown on the well-known air — 
 
 To-morrow I o-day.
 
 122 
 
 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 In the bustle and jam of the daily strife, 
 What matters if men preserve 
 
 The bosom of hope from the butcher's knife, 
 And its train from the pointsman curve? 
 
 Remember the fate of the ready maid 
 Who went where the preachers prey 
 
 Take matter for thought from a new decayed- 
 To-morrow succeeds to-day.
 
 MY ARCTIC TOUR. 
 
 HAVE not the least ambition — this is ex 
 planation merely — 
 
 or a winter in the regions that are 
 handy to the Pole, 
 Yet I imitate the travels of the heroes that have 
 
 nearly, 
 'Mid such horrible adventures, won the tantalising 
 goal. 
 
 I have followed Captain Parry t<> the islands that 
 
 In- christ< tied, 
 Where lii- vessel lay imprisoned all tin- weary winter 
 
 through ; 
 I have been with Ro i and Beechey where the frozen 
 in glistened, 
 Where no animal would linger and n<> vegetation 
 grew.
 
 124 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 I have watched the starving sailors of the Erebus 
 
 and Terror, 
 And my well-pomatumed tresses have uplifted at 
 
 the roots 
 When I saw the gallant fellows fall, alas ! into the 
 
 error, 
 That a stay for empty stomachs was a rotten pair 
 
 of boots. 
 
 I have sailed with Kane, M'Clintock, Osborne, 
 
 Kennedy, and others, 
 And I've trodden the Polaris with the doughty 
 
 Captain Hall, 
 I have rivalled all the actions of the band of Polar 
 
 brothers, 
 I have been with Nares to Disco, — but in fancy — 
 
 that is all. 
 
 When the twilight shadows deepen and my daily 
 work is over, 
 
 Home I hasten to the suburbs where my habitation 
 lies ; 
 
 There I don the proper garment for a Pole- 
 exploring rover, 
 
 I have learned its cut and texture in the "Travels " 
 that I prize.
 
 MY ARCTIC TOUR. 125 
 
 Next, I hoist the British ensign on the sofa (that's 
 
 my vessel), 
 Strew the floor with bits of paper as a substitute 
 
 for snow, 
 Sail for Disco (that's the table), where I ask if 
 
 sister Bess '11, 
 For a small consideration, be my faithful 
 
 Eskimo. 
 
 When by dint of much exertion with the poker and 
 
 the shovel, 
 We have brought our gallant vessel right across the 
 
 parlour floor, 
 We have reached our Winter quarters, neither 
 
 money, strength, nor love '11 
 Cleave a passage through the iceberg represented 
 
 by the door. 
 
 Hence we sledge upon the tcatray o'er the ice- 
 encumbered ocean, 
 
 But our latitude's uncertain and our longitude is 
 ue, 
 
 And we rub ea< b other's noses just to kei p alive 
 the notion 
 
 That wi suffer from the Dippings which the Arctic 
 heroea plague.
 
 126 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 In some four-and-twenty journeys, we've discovered 
 
 all the stations 
 Where adventurers before us passed so many 
 
 weary days, 
 And in turn we gave the honour of our winter 
 
 occupations — 
 Behring Strait and Melville Island, Great Fish 
 
 River and the Bays. 
 
 As for climate— well, it needed very little to 
 
 instil a 
 Perfect sense of frigid horrors, since it's easy on 
 
 the whole 
 For a man who spends the winter in a new 
 
 suburban villa, . 
 To imagine that he's braving all the rigours of the 
 
 Pole.
 
 A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER. 
 
 OMEWHERE or other in History's page 
 I've read that when poets were all the rage,- 
 (Oh, History, thou detractor !) — 
 They'd only to scribble a puff in verse, 
 To make them free of the house and purse 
 Of a titled benefactor. 
 
 What halcyon days they must have been, 
 When lords were ready to step between 
 
 The bard and slow starvation ; 
 When a poet had on-ly to praise a peer, 
 To earn a couple of " thou " a year 
 
 And a Government situation. 
 
 The bard may struggle and fighl to-day 
 And charm the town with his tuneful la) 
 
 No hand is strel i aid him ; 
 
 He ell ' ong to he trading crew, 
 
 Who hand him ;i palt nd or two 
 
 And think tn< y've overpaid him.
 
 128 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Yet now, my brothers, our pens are free, 
 We flatter no ninny of high degree, 
 
 Because his favours pay so. 
 No titled patron's help we crave, 
 And if we think that a nob's a knave, 
 
 We've every right to say so. 
 
 Let Fortune's wheel bring ceaseless blanks, 
 Let Destiny play us her wildest pranks, 
 
 And Misery come to try us ; 
 We're better by far than the bards of old — 
 By many a man we may be sold, 
 
 But nobody's wealth can buy us.
 
 THE DRINKER'S DIRGE 
 
 (HERE'S death in the teapot, there's 
 death in the jug ; 
 Try a drain of cold water, death lurks in 
 the mug. 
 No drink unfermented from danger is free, 
 Tin re are death and disease in Milk, Water, and Tea. 
 
 From the lead that in "waters" is lurking I shrink — 
 Oh, tell me, good doctors, what, whal can I drink ? 
 
 m the worship of Bacchus a convert I'd be, 
 ^ i t you hid me beware of .Milk, Water, and Tea 
 
 How a total abstainer's to live isn't clear, 
 For his conscience forbids him Wine, Spirits, and B 
 And Science commands as from death he should flee 
 From those poisonous liquids, Milk, Water, and Tea 
 
 In trying from all things our lips to debar 
 Hasn'l Science jusl galloped his hobby too I 
 Lei the nervous go th ha'n't i n me 
 
 \\ ,i li th n< ei ning Milk, W ndTea. 
 
 K
 
 THE ALDERMAN'S RETROSPECT. 
 
 N vain the board with silver groans 
 And fumes of turtle rise, 
 He only heaves a sigh and moans 
 As each new dish he tries ; 
 For Indigestion mounts her seat 
 
 And Appetite departs : 
 Ah ! happy days when he could eat 
 A shilling's-worth of tarts. 
 
 Go hide the capon from his sight, 
 
 Remove that ris de veau, 
 For every taste he takes to-night 
 
 Increases gastric woe. 
 Now back o'er many a distant day 
 
 His wand'ring fancies run ; 
 A lanky lad he puts away 
 
 Six penn'orth underdone.
 
 THE ALDERMAN'S RETROSPECT. 131 
 
 Lo ! o'er his thin-stemmed goblet's brim 
 
 The sparkling nectar creams. 
 Its lips are left unkissed by him — 
 
 He bows his head and dreams. 
 Once more at night, a hungry boy, 
 
 He leaves his master's shop, 
 And sups upon a saveloy 
 
 Washed down with ginger pop. 
 
 A friendly nudge prevents the snore 
 
 That rises to his nose ; 
 He picks his napkin from the floor, 
 
 And shifts his gouty toes. 
 Yet still his thoughts will backward flee, 
 
 And, racked by many a pain, 
 He'd give his hard-won wealth to be 
 
 That hungry boy again. 
 
 K 2
 
 THE JOKE. 
 
 HAD a joke — a little joke, 
 
 I told it humbly far and near, 
 No laugh the solemn stillness broke, 
 But people gazed with eyes severe, 
 And seem'd to think I should be hit 
 For thinking such a thing was wit. 
 
 I asked some critics to my room, 
 
 And gave it over Moet's best. 
 There fell on all a sudden gloom, 
 
 And low I hid my fallen crest. 
 " Don't make such sorry jokes," they said, 
 " But cut another quart instead." 
 
 I took my joke and wrapped it up, 
 
 And spun it out a yard or two, 
 Then sought a well-known place to sup, 
 
 Where lots of clever men I knew. 
 Then sitting down I cried forthwith, 
 " Who knows this joke of Sydney .Smith?"
 
 THE JOKE. 133 
 
 They clustered round me while I told 
 My little joke as Sydney's child ; 
 
 With frantic mirth about they rolled 
 And e'en the sleepy waiters smiled. 
 
 What, reader, could the reason be? 
 
 They laughed at him and sneered at me ! 
 
 I fancy, if you think it out, 
 
 You'll find the men who hear a jest 
 Are often harassed by a doubt 
 
 If mirth or scorn would look the best. 
 •w the jokes arc understood, 
 But Sydney Smith's ! — they must be good
 
 
 MMBW^^Ja 
 
 Xgn^W^i 
 
 &i\jr»*\* \ 7f^fT^Kw?Pfcj^ 
 
 
 KB ' 1 \&S 
 
 ^PiPpS 
 
 l&5pl 
 
 jj^-SfT^^ffJyBpyll 
 
 fipknryl^O"^^Z)aH 
 
 m- 4 'j£&9^ 
 
 stidifr^ 
 
 
 
 ^^g^X^ 
 
 
 HARMONIOUS NUMBERS. 
 
 A SOUVENIR. 
 
 UST pass your pouch this way, old fellow, 
 
 We've only time for twenty whiffs, 
 For through the sunlight mild and mellow 
 I see the chalk of Dover cliffs. 
 Ere daylight be with darkness blended 
 
 Our joyous journey will be done, 
 A pleasant page of life's book ended 
 For Fifty-seven and Sixty-one. 
 
 But yester eve and we were sipping 
 
 A mazagrin beneath the trees, 
 Parisian loungers past us tripping, 
 
 And all was there the eye to please. 
 Till late we sat, 'twas past eleven 
 
 When home we went with jest and pun, 
 And sought our rooms — I Fifty-seven, 
 
 And you, old fellow, Sixty-one.
 
 HARMOXIOL'S X UMBERS. 
 
 *35 
 
 But yesterday and we were driving 
 
 In Boulogne's wood so fresh and green, 
 Where light and shade were gently striving 
 
 Which best could paint the sylvan scene. 
 From Notre Dame, 'twixt earth and heaven, 
 
 We gazed on Paris bathed in sun, 
 Then arm-in-arm with Fifty-seven 
 
 To dine went ami Sixty-one. 
 
 My 'pipe's gone out ! Hulloa, here's Dover ! 
 
 Pick up your traps, old boy, we're in ! 
 Our holiday, alas ! is over ; 
 
 Now hey! for London's dirt and din. 
 Some grief all earthly joys must leaven, 
 
 We part to-night, our 1 is run. 
 
 You won't forget old Fifty-seven — 
 
 I roo .-bye. God bless you, Sixty-one !
 
 MY SUMMER RETREAT. 
 
 'M off away from London, please, to build 
 
 a little place 
 
 Where I can have some air to breathe and 
 
 lots of open space ; 
 
 I want to find a mountain top that isn't over bleak, 
 
 Without a hilly road to it, because my legs are weak. 
 
 I do not want a neighbourhood beset with country 
 
 clowns, 
 But just a neighbour here and there who knows the 
 
 way of towns. 
 They must not come and call on me, for callers are 
 
 a bore, 
 But I shall go and visit them say twice a week or 
 
 more.
 
 MY SUMMER RETREAT 137 
 
 I want the country round about to be the sort of 
 
 tiling 
 Of which the chaps who write for books perpetually 
 
 sing- 
 Renowned throughout the British Isles as just the 
 
 place to see ; 
 But all the country round about I want reserved to 
 
 me. 
 
 I want the strict simplicity of rural life to reign 
 O'er wooded height and shady dell and daisy-dotted 
 
 plain ; 
 But there must be a station close and frequent trains 
 
 must start 
 To run me at a modest fare to almost every part. 
 
 No echo of the city life must find its way to mar, 
 I want no village public-house with yokels at 1 he bar; 
 Bui just a dainty restaurant where haply I may 
 
 dine, 
 And find a perfect Fren< h cuisine and get the besl 
 
 dI wine.
 
 REGRET. 
 
 DO not mourn, sweet wife of mine, 
 Because those ruby lips of thine — 
 That marble brow — 
 Were kissed by one who might have been, 
 Had I not chanced to step between, 
 Thy husband now. 
 
 I do not grieve because thy heart, 
 Ere Cupid touched it with my dart, 
 
 For him would beat : 
 Nor that the hand which owns my ring 
 Once wore his gift, a " Mizpah " thing. 
 
 It was but meet. 
 
 I sigh not that his arms were placed 
 Some score of times around your waist, 
 
 So sweet and slim. 
 Ah no, my love ! the woe you see 
 Is mine because you wedded me 
 
 Instead of him.
 
 A RONDEL. 
 
 HASING dead leaves along the thick 
 
 strewn way, 
 Madly we hurry for the rough wind's prey. 
 Caught by the colours which false Fancy weaves, 
 Our godlike youth in aimless sports we slay. 
 Fair is the outset; 'tis the goal that grieves, 
 Chasing dead leaves. 
 
 Chasing dead leaves ! Oh, wife with care-dulled eyes, 
 Far back our start upon the journey lies. 
 
 Where is Hope's harvest, all the golden sheaves? 
 Where of linked lives is now the promised prize? 
 
 Spring noons are past, we come to Autumn eves, 
 Chasing dead leaves. 
 
 Chasing dead Lea ball Fame not turn to one 
 
 Gleaming so brightly in Liu: morning sun . J 
 
 Who dons a verdure thai fond youth de< eives 
 And hides the - anker till the ra< -■ is run : 
 
 Then mocks the < lut< h of him who om heaves, 
 
 Ch. i ling dead leav<
 
 A TRUE STORY. 
 
 T happened that an Eastern King, 
 Whose name and land I need not 
 mention, 
 Came over here to try and bring 
 
 His troubles to our folks' attention. 
 Our gracious sovereign heard his tale, 
 
 Our leading statesmen all received him, 
 And though his story turned them pale, 
 
 They heard it through and quite believed him. 
 
 He told them how his subjects were 
 
 Composed of races vile and vicious ; 
 He laid their awful secrets bare, 
 
 And proved the moment most propitious 
 For us to send our teachers out 
 
 (With such a wish what State could quarrel ?) 
 To put their wicked ways to rout 
 
 And inculcate the strictly moral.
 
 A TRUE STORY. 141 
 
 Now while the chosen men prepare 
 
 To start upon their noble mission, 
 The monarch has a month to spare 
 
 In which to study our position. 
 He learns our language, sees our sights. 
 
 And cuts the usual tourist capers, 
 Sees London life in all its lights, 
 
 And takes to read the daily papers. 
 
 Or rather — let me be correct — 
 
 He only read a single journal. 
 Its leaders caused him to reflect; 
 
 The "< g Lve him pangs internal 
 
 II ri id of kickings, bitings, Mows, 
 
 murders, fights, and frauds, and arsons; 
 ( m 3win Hi r 1 barged in lengthy row 
 
 Including doctors, nobs, and parsons. 
 
 He read the sheet with horrors fraught, 
 1 1 were fixed in wildesl terror, 
 
 1 1 1 ian friend 
 
 And b ir pardon foi 
 
 'I ' aid ' '".■•< re v 
 
 Your "in their ; 
 
 Ho ch their hi he 
 
 among th re.
 
 i4- BALLADS OF BABYLON 
 
 " My subjects are, I grieve to state, 
 
 By much removed from virtue's standard. 
 It has distressed me, too, of late 
 
 To find they all to crime have pandered. 
 But having seen your stock of vice, 
 
 Of sin, and shame, and degradation, 
 I feel my folks are clean and nice ; 
 
 Compared with you — a spotless nation."
 
 THE HUMAN AUCTION. 
 
 JO ! here are lives by the score to sell. 
 Up to the platform, gents, and bid ; 
 Make me an offer, they'll pay you well 
 All of 'cm ripe for the coffin lid. 
 Here is a woman pinched and pale, 
 
 Plying her needle for daily bread ; 
 Give me a shirt for her — more on sale, 
 Dying ! gentlemen — dying! — dead ! 
 
 A family, six in number, here, 
 
 Fresh from a cellar in Somers 1 Towi . 
 Mother hi confinemenl near, 
 
 Father and bral with fever down. 
 'Twa l '■ I ilence spoke then, was it no, ? 
 
 An open jewer," I think he aid ; 
 Well, hi offer -hall buy tin- lot , 
 
 ! )\ in; 1 , ' gentlemen dying ! dead !
 
 144 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Now, good customers, here's a chance: 
 
 A thousand men in the prime of life, 
 Wielders of musket, sword, and lance, 
 
 Armed and drilled for the deadly strife. 
 General Warfare lifts his hand — 
 
 " A bullet for each," cries the gent in red. 
 No offer but his, — fast flows the sand, 
 
 Dying ! gentlemen — dying ! — dead ' 
 
 A body of toilers worn and weak, 
 
 Clerks and curates and writing men — 
 Look at the flush on each sunken cheek, 
 
 Mark the fingers that grasp the pen ! 
 Come, good gentlemen, can't we deal? 
 
 Has Drudgery's eye for bargains fled ? 
 He offers, at last, the price of a meal — 
 
 Dying ! gentlemen — dying ! — dead !
 
 A LEGEND. 
 
 BY A LUNATIC LAUREATE. 
 
 HEY came to me, a merry troop of aged 
 
 men and dames, 
 And bade me brighten up a bit and watch 
 their little games. 
 I had my big umbrella up and stood beneath a tree, 
 And so I said, "It's much too wet to lark about and 
 
 spree 
 
 >j 
 
 The skies above were black as ink, the rain was 
 
 pouring down, 
 And boats would be the only means to reach the 
 
 distanl town. 
 'Twas in the height of summer time — in fact, an 
 
 August day, 
 Yel I was damp and had do heart to slush about and 
 
 play.
 
 146 BALLADS OF BABYLON. 
 
 So, when they saw that I was sad, those aged 
 
 people went 
 And brought me out a macintosh, goloshes, and a 
 
 tent, 
 And sat them down on stools and things and told 
 
 me little tales 
 Of how in August years ago there were no awful 
 
 gales; 
 Of how the summer days were warm and folks could 
 
 play about, 
 And never dread the hurricane, the storm, and 
 
 waterspout ; 
 How people romped in new-mown hay and had no 
 
 end of fun, 
 And no one's eyes expressed surprise to see a 
 
 noonday sun. 
 
 And when they saw the wonderment expressed upon 
 
 my face, 
 They told me how the country once was quite a 
 
 lovely place ; 
 Where one could sit upon the grass and gather 
 
 wholesome fruits, 
 And walk about the verdant fields in patent leather 
 
 boots.
 
 A LEGEND. 147 
 
 How people then who went away a fortnight out of 
 
 town 
 Came back with freckles on the nose and faces 
 
 ruddy brown, 
 And how the summer sun shone out through all the 
 
 summer time, 
 And rain and cold were looked upon as strangers to 
 
 the clime. 
 
 I stood it for a little while, and then I rose and 
 
 said : 
 " I wonder if the Devil put this nonsense in your 
 
 head ? 
 I know I am a lunatic, but, hang it all, I say, 
 You story-telling aged folks, pack up and go away ! 
 In summer we expect the gale, the tempest and the 
 
 storm, 
 And only fools would dare to say it once was fine 
 
 and warm. 
 Be off before yon summer cloud that blackens all 
 
 the ! 
 In indignation drenches you for telling me such 
 
 lies I" 
 
 L 2
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN. 
 
 ROM infancy, which crows and crawls, 
 To years mature, which sigh and run, 
 He lives where rain eternal falls 
 And seldom comes a gleam of sun. 
 Above his head are blackened clouds, 
 
 Below a slush that never dries, 
 While chill and drenching moisture shrouds 
 The dismal land of leaden skies. 
 
 What wonder if his features bear 
 
 The reflex of his sunless clime : 
 A settled look of dull despair 
 
 Set deeply by the hand of Time ! 
 What wonder if the ceaseless drip 
 
 Of raindrops from the soaking eaves 
 Takes hold of him with rolling grip, 
 
 And just a mildewed mortal leaves !
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN. 149 
 
 He cannot dance or sing or laugh 
 
 Like children of the brighter South ; 
 To keep his soul warm he must quaff 
 
 A liquid fire that stings the mouth, 
 That thaws the heart and melts the brain, 
 
 Thai sets a Devil in his eyes, — 
 So Demon Drink and Demon Rain 
 
 Rule all the land of leaden skies.
 
 THE HAUSFRAUENVEREIN. 
 
 ITHIN that most malod'rous city, 
 
 Whence Papal bishops have to flee ! 
 Where folks are rather wise than witty. 
 And yet for ever on the Spree, — 
 The housewives lately have decided 
 
 In one strong body to combine, 
 To deal with questions many-sided, 
 And form a Hausfrauenverein. 
 
 When tradesmen give short weight and measure, 
 
 When doctors' charges get too high, 
 When fashion interferes with pleasure 
 
 And single men from wedlock fly — 
 These fair ones quickly hold a sitting, 
 
 And straight determine on the line 
 Of warfare which is most befitting 
 
 The Berlin Hausfrauenverein.
 
 THE HAUSFRAUENVEREIN. 151 
 
 They fix the price of beef and mutton, 
 
 They frame the laws of ball and rout, 
 Discuss the claims of hook or button, 
 
 And trot their whims and crotchets out. 
 How much by ladies may be swallowed 
 
 Of Wiener Bier, or Rhenish wine, 
 The rule is made, and strictly followed 
 
 By all the Hausfrauenverein. 
 
 The best attention by them paid is 
 
 To all the laws their lords propose 
 Which bear at all upon the ladies ; 
 
 They aid their friends and light their foes. 
 Now here's a plan, dear Woman's Righters, — 
 
 Why not like Berlin dames combine? 
 Leave Westminster to lii-rcer lighters, 
 
 And form a Hausfrauenverein.
 
 LITTLE WORRIES. 
 
 HOUGH many ills may hamper life 
 When Fortune turns capricious, 
 The great but nerve us for the strife, 
 The small ones make us vicious. 
 Fierce griefs are soon outstripped by one 
 
 Who through existence scurries ; 
 It's harder far a race to run 
 With nimble "little worries." 
 
 A button bids your-shirt good-bye 
 
 When late for dinner dressing, 
 You have a kite you cannot fly, 
 
 And creditors are pressing. 
 You run to catch — and lose — a train 
 
 (That fatalest of hurries), 
 Your newest hat encounters rain — 
 
 Life's full of " little worries."
 
 LITTLE WORRIES! 
 
 153 
 
 From day to day some silly things 
 
 Upset you altogether ; 
 There's nought so soon convulsion brings 
 
 As tickling with a feather. 
 'Gainst minor evils let him pray 
 
 Who fortune's favour curries, — 
 For one that big misfortunes slay 
 
 Ten die of <l little worries."
 
 YE BARDES DESYRE. 
 
 N I of formes to tak my choyce 
 Were at this momente free, . 
 I 'd be ye birde whose tuneful voyce 
 I heere on yonder tree. 
 He onlye singes whan he J s inclynde ; 
 
 Hys constitucion's sounde ; 
 Ande he has ne ye rente to fynde 
 
 Whan Quartere Daye commes rounde. 
 
 From twigge to twigge he hoppes aboute, 
 
 No woes his harte oppress, 
 And whan at morne he turneth oute 
 
 He has not gotte to dress. 
 'Tis true hys songe he has to synge 
 
 Withoute a syngers fee, 
 But that's about ye onlye thynge 
 
 In which oure lottes agree.
 
 ON A RECENT LITERARY FEED. 
 
 HAT, eat a newspaper!" quoth Tim. 
 
 " Pray did the meal agree with him ; 
 
 Or did he indigestion get, 
 The man who thus a journal ate ? 
 I read the papers every day, 
 And ne'er can swallow half 'they say." 
 
 " From such a feast," Tim's friend replies, 
 ' How could dyspeptic pains arise? 
 The Press would scarce eschew its rule 
 To spite the chest of sui li a fool. 
 And papers, so the i ynics sing, 
 / '• easily on anything/ 1
 
 A DOUBLE EVE-ENT. 
 
 HEARD a matron on a Boat-race day 
 Applaud the pluck our British youth 
 display — 
 
 And cry, with pride upon her beaming face, 
 She thought 'twas that which always won a race. 
 " Ah, madam," said' I, "such ideas eschew," 
 For Eden's river rises to my view : 
 There tempted, Eve, alas ! turns lady thief, 
 And by her pluck she brings our race to grief. 
 
 Printed at 19 and 20, Wine Office-court, Fleet-street, E.C. 
 
 i-f
 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAYLORO 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U.S.A.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 in n mi i |ii in ii inn i mi mi II II 1 1 I '" 
 
 III ll lllll I III! III! II ll II III 
 
 AA 000 641 324 9 
 
 JNIV 
 
 RSI 
 
 
 ' 
 
 3 1210 01285 2487