More Bab Ballads [6]
maiden young and comely
Who wanted good advice
(However poor or homely)
Need ask him for it twice.
He'd wipe away the blindness
That comes of teary dew;
His sympathetic kindness
No sort of limit knew.
He always hated dealing
With men who schemed or planned;
A person harsh - unfeeling -
The Colonel could not stand.
He hated cold, suspecting,
Official men in blue,
Who pass their lives detecting
The crimes that others do.
For men who'd shoot a sparrow,
Or immolate a worm
Beneath a farmer's harrow,
He could not find a term.
Humanely, ay, and knightly
He dealt with such an one;
He took and tied him tightly,
And blew him from a gun.
The earth has armies plenty,
And semi-warlike bands,
I'm certain there are twenty
In European lands;
But, oh! in no direction
You'd find one to compare
In brotherly affection
With that of COLONEL FLARE.
Ballad: Lost Mr. Blake
MR. BLAKE was a regular out-and-out hardened sinner,
Who was quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak,
He was in the habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a
glass of grog on a Sunday after dinner,
And seldom thought of going to church more than twice or - if
Good Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in it - three
times a week.
He was quite indifferent as to the particular kinds of dresses
That the clergyman wore at church where he used to go to pray,
And whatever he did in the way of relieving a chap's
distresses,
He always did in a nasty, sneaking, underhanded, hole-and-
corner sort of way.
I have known him indulge in profane, ungentlemanly emphatics,
When the Protestant Church has been divided on the subject of
the proper width of a chasuble's hem;
I have even known him to sneer at albs - and as for dalmatics,
Words can't convey an idea of the contempt he expressed for
THEM.
He didn't believe in persons who, not being well off
themselves, are obliged to confine their charitable exertions
to collecting money from wealthier people,
And looked upon individuals of the former class as
ecclesiastical hawks;
He used to say that he would no more think of interfering with
his priest's robes than with his church or his steeple,
And that he did not consider his soul imperilled because
somebody over whom he had no influence whatever, chose to
dress himself up like an exaggerated GUY FAWKES.
This shocking old vagabond was so unutterably shameless
That he actually went a-courting a very respectable and pious
middle-aged sister, by the name of BIGGS.
She was a rather attractive widow, whose life as such had
always been particularly blameless;
Her first husband had left her a secure but moderate
competence, owing to some fortunate speculations in the matter
of figs.
She was an excellent person in every way - and won the respect
even of MRS. GRUNDY,
She was a good housewife, too, and wouldn't have wasted a
penny if she had owned the Koh-i-noor.
She was just as strict as he was lax in her observance of
Sunday,
And being a good economist, and charitable besides, she took
all the bones and cold potatoes and broken pie-crusts and
candle-ends (when she had quite done with them), and made them
into an excellent soup for the deserving poor.
I am sorry to say that she rather took to BLAKE - that outcast
of society,
And when respectable brothers who were fond of her began to
look dubious and to cough,
She would say, "Oh, my friends, it's because I hope to bring
this poor benighted soul back to virtue and propriety,
And besides, the poor benighted soul, with all his faults, was
uncommonly well off.
And when MR. BLAKE'S dissipated friends called his attention
to the frown or the pout of her,
Whenever he did anything which appeared to her to savour of an
unmentionable place,
He would say that "she would be a very decent old girl when
all that nonsense
Who wanted good advice
(However poor or homely)
Need ask him for it twice.
He'd wipe away the blindness
That comes of teary dew;
His sympathetic kindness
No sort of limit knew.
He always hated dealing
With men who schemed or planned;
A person harsh - unfeeling -
The Colonel could not stand.
He hated cold, suspecting,
Official men in blue,
Who pass their lives detecting
The crimes that others do.
For men who'd shoot a sparrow,
Or immolate a worm
Beneath a farmer's harrow,
He could not find a term.
Humanely, ay, and knightly
He dealt with such an one;
He took and tied him tightly,
And blew him from a gun.
The earth has armies plenty,
And semi-warlike bands,
I'm certain there are twenty
In European lands;
But, oh! in no direction
You'd find one to compare
In brotherly affection
With that of COLONEL FLARE.
Ballad: Lost Mr. Blake
MR. BLAKE was a regular out-and-out hardened sinner,
Who was quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak,
He was in the habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a
glass of grog on a Sunday after dinner,
And seldom thought of going to church more than twice or - if
Good Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in it - three
times a week.
He was quite indifferent as to the particular kinds of dresses
That the clergyman wore at church where he used to go to pray,
And whatever he did in the way of relieving a chap's
distresses,
He always did in a nasty, sneaking, underhanded, hole-and-
corner sort of way.
I have known him indulge in profane, ungentlemanly emphatics,
When the Protestant Church has been divided on the subject of
the proper width of a chasuble's hem;
I have even known him to sneer at albs - and as for dalmatics,
Words can't convey an idea of the contempt he expressed for
THEM.
He didn't believe in persons who, not being well off
themselves, are obliged to confine their charitable exertions
to collecting money from wealthier people,
And looked upon individuals of the former class as
ecclesiastical hawks;
He used to say that he would no more think of interfering with
his priest's robes than with his church or his steeple,
And that he did not consider his soul imperilled because
somebody over whom he had no influence whatever, chose to
dress himself up like an exaggerated GUY FAWKES.
This shocking old vagabond was so unutterably shameless
That he actually went a-courting a very respectable and pious
middle-aged sister, by the name of BIGGS.
She was a rather attractive widow, whose life as such had
always been particularly blameless;
Her first husband had left her a secure but moderate
competence, owing to some fortunate speculations in the matter
of figs.
She was an excellent person in every way - and won the respect
even of MRS. GRUNDY,
She was a good housewife, too, and wouldn't have wasted a
penny if she had owned the Koh-i-noor.
She was just as strict as he was lax in her observance of
Sunday,
And being a good economist, and charitable besides, she took
all the bones and cold potatoes and broken pie-crusts and
candle-ends (when she had quite done with them), and made them
into an excellent soup for the deserving poor.
I am sorry to say that she rather took to BLAKE - that outcast
of society,
And when respectable brothers who were fond of her began to
look dubious and to cough,
She would say, "Oh, my friends, it's because I hope to bring
this poor benighted soul back to virtue and propriety,
And besides, the poor benighted soul, with all his faults, was
uncommonly well off.
And when MR. BLAKE'S dissipated friends called his attention
to the frown or the pout of her,
Whenever he did anything which appeared to her to savour of an
unmentionable place,
He would say that "she would be a very decent old girl when
all that nonsense