More Bab Ballads [31]
(Do not quarrel
With him, moral,
Scrupulous digestions -
'Twas his mother,
And no other,
Answered all the questions.)
Time proceeded;
Little needed
GEORGIE admonition:
He, elated,
Vindicated
Clergyman's position.
People round him
Always found him
Plain and unpretending;
Kindly teaching,
Plainly preaching,
All his money lending.
So the fairy,
Wise and wary,
Felt no sorrow rising -
No occasion
For persuasion,
Warning, or advising.
He, resuming
Fairy pluming
(That's not English, is it?)
Oft would fly up,
To the sky up,
Pay mamma a visit.
* * * * * * * *
Time progressing,
GEORGIE'S blessing
Grew more Ritualistic -
Popish scandals,
Tonsures - sandals -
Genuflections mystic;
Gushing meetings -
Bosom-beatings -
Heavenly ecstatics -
Broidered spencers -
Copes and censers -
Rochets and dalmatics.
This quandary
Vexed the fairy -
Flew she down to Ealing.
"GEORGIE, stop it!
Pray you, drop it;
Hark to my appealing:
To this foolish
Papal rule-ish
Twaddle put an ending;
This a swerve is
From our Service
Plain and unpretending."
He, replying,
Answered, sighing,
Hawing, hemming, humming,
"It's a pity -
They're so pritty;
Yet in mode becoming,
Mother tender,
I'll surrender -
I'll be unaffected - "
But his Bishop
Into HIS shop
Entered unexpected!
"Who is this, sir, -
Ballet miss, sir?"
Said the Bishop coldly.
"'T is my mother,
And no other,"
GEORGIE answered boldly.
"Go along, sir!
You are wrong, sir;
You have years in plenty,
While this hussy
(Gracious mussy!)
Isn't two and twenty!"
(Fairies clever
Never, never
Grow in visage older;
And the fairy,
All unwary,
Leant upon his shoulder!)
Bishop grieved him,
Disbelieved him;
GEORGE the point grew warm on;
Changed religion,
Like a pigeon, (12)
And became a Mormon!
Ballad: The Way Of Wooing
A maiden sat at her window wide,
Pretty enough for a Prince's bride,
Yet nobody came to claim her.
She sat like a beautiful picture there,
With pretty bluebells and roses fair,
And jasmine-leaves to frame her.
And why she sat there nobody knows;
But this she sang as she plucked a rose,
The leaves around her strewing:
"I've time to lose and power to choose;
'T is not so much the gallant who woos,
But the gallant's WAY of wooing!"
A lover came riding by awhile,
A wealthy lover was he, whose smile
Some maids would value greatly -
A formal lover, who bowed and bent,
With many a high-flown compliment,
And cold demeanour stately,
"You've still," said she to her suitor stern,
"The 'prentice-work of your craft to learn,
If thus you come a-cooing.
I've time to lose and power to choose;
'T is not so much the gallant who woos,
As the gallant's WAY of wooing!"
A second lover came ambling by -
A timid lad with a frightened eye
And a colour mantling highly.
He muttered the errand on which he'd come,
Then only chuckled and bit his thumb,
And simpered, simpered shyly.
"No," said the maiden, "go your way;
You dare but think what a man would say,
Yet dare to come a-suing!
I've time to lose and power to choose;
'T is not so much the gallant who woos,
As the gallant's WAY of wooing!"
A third rode up at a startling pace -
A suitor poor, with a homely face -
No doubts appeared to bind him.
He kissed her lips and he pressed her waist,
And off he rode with the maiden, placed
On a pillion safe behind him.
And she heard the suitor bold confide
This golden hint to the priest who tied
The knot there's no undoing;
With pretty young maidens who can choose,
'Tis not so much the gallant who woos,
As the gallant's WAY of wooing!"
Ballad: Hongree And Mahry. A Recollection Of A Surrey
Melodrama
The sun was setting in its wonted west,