Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

When snow and slush block up the street,
And “slides” send skyward both my feet,
And bang upon my back I go,
I wish myself in Jericho.

When County Council cranks disgust,
When schemes that drew my coin go bust,
When bigots harass every show,
I wish myself in Jericho.

When frost gives way to sudden thaw,
And all my pipes have got a flaw,
And through my house the waters flow,
I wish myself in Jericho.

When for next Sunday’s _Referee_
I have to do my M. and C.
While in dyspepsia’s direst throe,
I wish myself in Jericho.

The Song of Heredity.

My father was a madman, do you wonder I’m insane?
My mother wasn’t pretty, do you wonder I am plain?
My father was consumptive, and my hollow cheeks you see;
Can you wonder I’m a drunkard when my mother had d.t.?
Science speaks out pretty plainly on “hereditary taint,”
And the sinner breeds a sinner, as the saint begets a saint;
Then why call me Ananias, and reproach me, since, forsooth,
My papa was such a liar that I _cannot_ tell the truth?

When his ancestors for ages by their own mad acts have died,
Do you wonder that a fellow has a taste for suicide?
When a nose for generations is the feature of a race,
And you know a fellow’s surname just by glancing at his face,--
When this modern law of nature throughout all creation runs,
And it’s odds on roaring racers having only roaring sons,
Do you think that Ananias you should dub a luckless youth
Whose papa was such a liar that he _cannot_ tell the truth?

Scotch’d, not Kilt.

(THE KAISER’S SONG.)

AIR.--“_I winna gang back to my mammy again._”

I winna gang back to auld Bizzy again,
I’ll never gang back to auld Bizzy again;
I’ve held by his coat-tails this aught months and ten,
But I’ll never gang back to auld Bizzy again.
I’ve held by his coat-tails, etc.

Caprivi came down i’ the gloaming to woo,
He lookit sae bonnie and honest and true;
“Oh, com’ awa’, Willie, ne’er let Bizzy ken;”
And I made young Caprivi the best o’ my men,
Oh, com’ awa’, Willie, etc.

He told me whatever I would I might do,
And pressed hame his words wi’ a smile on his mou’,
So I fell on his bosom, and said, “Ye maun reign,
For aiblins ye’ll leave me a will o’ my ain.”
So I fell on his bosom, etc.

For many lang months sin’ I cam’ to the crown
Auld Bizzy’s been hecklin’ and haudin’ me down;
I’ve held by his coat-tails this aught months and ten,
But I’ll never gang back to auld Bizzy again.
I’ve held by his coat-tails, etc.

The Last Resource.

At forty-three, in broken health,
The heel of Fate has crushed my pride;
No joy I find in work or wealth--
There’s nothing left but suicide.

The wind blows ever from the east;
It’s madness now my trike to ride;
My pony’s lame, poor little beast--
There’s nothing left but suicide.

My hair is thin, my face is fat,
My waist is spreading far and wide;
Last week I lost my favourite cat--
There’s nothing left but suicide.

I am not starred on any bills,
The critics all my work deride;
I’m sick of taking draughts and pills--
There’s nothing left but suicide.

I am too sad to make a joke,
The girl I love’s another’s bride;
The doctors will not let me smoke--
There’s nothing left but suicide.

My house, I find, is built on clay,
In vain to let it I have tried;
The income tax is due to-day--
There’s nothing left but suicide.

What’s this?--a box of chocolates,
With pale pink ribbon neatly tied?
The “sweets of life” again, O Fates,
I taste, and laugh at suicide.

Ye Bars and Gates.

Ye bars and gates o’ Bloomsbury,
How can ye stand so silent there?
How can ye, knowing ye are doomed,
From some sma’ signs o’ grief forbear?
He’ll break his heart, will Bedford’s duke,
Whose grandeur County Councils spurn,
As he bemoans his feudal rights--
Departed never to return.

Ye bars and gates, ye’re comin’ doon;
No more ye’ll block the freeman’s path,
And make the traveller lose his train,
Or rouse the British cabman’s wrath.
Wi’ lightsome heart we root ye up,
And leave the streets o’ London free;
And there’s but one will mourn your loss,
And that’s his grace the Duke of B.

Portrait of a Prince.

(BY A SOCIETY GOSSIPER.)

He’s the dropsy, he’s the gout,
And he looks like pegging out;
And he’s sobbing and he’s sighing all the day--
All the day.

He is haggard, he is pale,
And his limbs begin to fail,
And his whiskers and moustache are going gray--
Going gray.

He is but a bag of bones,
And he lies awake and groans,
When he’s carried by his valet up to bed--
Up to bed.

He is hollow cheeked and eyed,
And, though everything is tried,
He never sleeps a moment for neuralgia in the head--
In the head.

Bitter tears are in his eyes
Night and morning, as he cries,
“Oh, my health is slowly breaking: I’m so ill--
I’m so ill!

“I shall soon be on the shelf,
For I’m ‘going’ like a Guelph.
Please oblige me with my mixture and a pill--
And a pill.”

(BY HIMSELF.)

Which I simply answer, Rot!
For Wales hasn’t gone to pot.
Please to contradict the rumours that are rife--
That are rife.

Now he’s had a little rest
Wales can go it with the best,
And he never felt so jolly in his life--
In his life.

The Strong Men.

They lined the quays on every shore,
They fought for ships to take them o’er;
They filled those ships from stern to stem,
And still there was no end of them.

They came by river, road, and rail,
By every Continental mail,
By White Star, Inman, and Cunard,
And sent the managers a card.

With iron bars and chains of steel,
A mixture of the sham and real,
With mighty weights and cannon-balls
They sought the London music-halls.

From every land beneath the sun,
And each of them the strongest one,
They all performed the self-same feats,
And still they played to big receipts.

Still fiercer grew the strong man boom,
And still for more the shows made room;
For, since so much one strong man drew,
What wealth might there not be in _two_!

The halls were crowded night and day
To see strong men with dumb-bells play;
The playhouse saw its public lost,
And all but “strong man” was a “frost.”

They put a strong man in the play--
The first in “London Day by Day”;
Then Willard cried to Jones, “A plan!
Put Sandow in ‘The Middleman.’”

“Ah, me!” Pinero said, “too late--
We might have saved ‘The Profligate.’
No Tosca and no Bernard-Beere,
Had we but had a Samson here!”

They filled the houses and the halls,
They crammed the boxes and the stalls;
Where’er a strong man did a show,
They had to add “an extra row.”

The men of strength were Britain’s pride--
Adored, exalted, deified--
Till suddenly John Bull awoke,
And rubbed his eyes and saw the joke.

“Good lord!” he cried, and danced with rage,
“Have I gone daft in my old age?
These chaps I’ve seen, I do declare,
At every common country fair.

“A hundred pounds a week for this!
Pooh! bosh! here, hang it, let me hiss!
The chap at fairs who did all that
_Collected coppers in his hat_!”

* * * * *

The strong men, finding all is o’er,
Have wisely sought another shore;
But, though they search from sea to sea,
They’ll never find such fools as we.

A Ballad of Soap.

AFTER ANDREW LANG.

The hours are passing slow,
To see my watch I dread,
’Tis ten o’clock, I know,
And yet I lie in bed,
With dull and aching head.
That pint of fizz with Joe,
That big cigar with Fred,
Have wrought dyspeptic woe.
No more with friends I’ll tope.
It’s twelve! Ho, Phyllis, ho!
Hot water and some soap!

I see the feet of crow
Around my lids of lead;
My pallid face also
With yellow hues o’erspread.
My eyes are very red!
What good is growling so?
I’ll wash myself instead.

* * * * *

What means this healthy glow?
What means this new-born hope?
Why rosy do I grow?
_I’m using Samson’s soap!_

My thoughts resume their flow,
My garb of sloth is fled;
I’m waltzing to and fro,
And feel no longer dead.
My gloomy hour has sped--
A dashing, mashing beau;
My yellow hue has fled--
I’m game to ride or row.
I envy not the Pope,
I’m full of life and go,
Thanks be to Samson’s Soap!

ENVOY.

Prince! whose pet name is “Ted,”
When you are feeling low,
And wake at dawn and mope,
And tumble out of bed,
And wash from top to toe,
Use only Samson’s soap!

The Jokeleteer.

Over the sobs of mourners,
Over the cry of pain,
Where men gather with bloodless faces
To search for the mangled slain,
The sound of my mocking laughter
In the silence is loud and clear;
What do I care for corpses,
Since I am a Jokeleteer?

While the heart of the nation pulses
In sympathy with woe,
While the living claim their dead ones
Who lie in a ghastly row,
Into the weeping faces
With a pitiless glance I peer,
As I merrily crack my wheezes,
For I am a Jokeleteer.

While strong men reel and sicken,
And their eyes grow dim and red,
My poor little brains I cudgel
For a joke about the dead.
I’ve a jest for a man’s last moments,
A pun for his open bier,
And a jape for the Day of Judgment,
For I am a Jokeleteer.

Bill Sikes’s Protest.

O England, can you hear it
Without a blush of shame?
Our lay, they mean to queer it,
And stop our little game.
It’s right down mean and sneaking--
They’re going to give the blues,
To stop their boots from creaking,
New indiarubber shoes.

It makes a Briton shirty,
And sets his hair on end,
To think to tricks so dirty
The law should condescend,--
That in the land of freedom
And honourable views,
The slops, e’en though they need ’em,
Should walk in silent shoes.

Fair play they say’s a jewel;
There’s honour among thieves;
But this new dodge is cruel--
For look how it deceives!
Our Mayor should call a meeting--
His lordship can’t refuse--
Denouncing law competing
With crime in silent shoes.

It’s hard enough at present
For us to earn our bread,
And always most unpleasant
To hear the peeler’s tread;
But we between starvation
And honesty must choose,
If once the British nation
Allows these blarsted shoes.

The Clarinet.

When all the sunshine lies behind,
And all the dusk before,
When friends have turned to foes unkind,
And love is love no more;
When life is but a cruel ache,
And living but a fret,
’Tis then, poor heart, the time to take
Your good old clarinet.

When wife and child have passed away,
And health has broken down;
When you are growing old and gray,
And Fortune wears a frown,--
When to your heart’s despairing cry
No answer you can get,
’Tis then, if you are wise, you’ll try
Your good old clarinet.

Go, victim of life’s battle, go,
And, heedless of your scars,
Find solace here for all your woe
In half a dozen bars.
’Twill reconcile us to our stay
Here, where our task is set,
To hear life’s million victims play
The good old clarinet.

No Evening Dress.

The Church believes God will not bless
A crowd that comes in evening dress.
Of worldliness the antidote,
Our “Arch.” proclaims the morning coat.
What folly!--since God’s only care
Is what we _are_, not what we _wear_.

Alone in London.

(Dizain.)

The dust blows through the empty street,
The low skies gather grim and gray,
The raindrops on the windows beat
This cold and cheerless August day.
And all my friends are far away
Across the moors or by the sea,
But I must linger, woe is me!
Since cruel fortune so doth choose
Then, friends who read the _Referee_,
Forgive me if I get the blues.

The Volunteer.

It was a gallant Volunteer,
He woke one wintry night,
The long-expected sound to hear,
“The foe is now in sight.”

He leapt from out his cosy bed,
He kissed his frightened wife,
Then put his helmet on his head,
To fight for home and life.

He gaily donned his uniform--
Such portions as he had--
And then went out into the storm;
The night was very bad.

The snowflakes fell as large as eggs,
The blast his bosom smote;
He had no trousers on his legs,
He had no overcoat.

His heart was full of brave intent,
He started at a trot;
But O, he shivered as he went--
Il n’avait pas de bottes!

Ten thousand strong in legs all bare,
And only in their socks,
Our fellows made the Frenchmen stare,
Yet stood their ground like rocks.

But when the Frenchmen saw the foe,
Our noble Volunteers,
They laughed “Ha, ha!” and yelled “Ho, ho!”
And greeted them with sneers.

“C’est drôle,” they cried; “c’est bien drôle,
Cette armée sans culottes,”
And Alphonse yelled to Anatole,
“Ils n’ont donc pas de bottes.”

The British blushed with bitter shame,
Their feelings were acute,
And, though they were extremely game,
They felt too pained to shoot.

Their wail was borne upon the breeze,
“The foe our army mocks,”
But still the cold benumbed their knees,
The snow soaked through their socks.

And so because they weren’t equipped
As Volunteers should be,
The well-clad Frenchmen by them skipped,
And it was all U P.

O Britons, for your country’s sake,
And all you hold most dear,
A lesson from this story take,
And clothe the Volunteer.

For trousers, boots, and overcoats
To Lord Mayor Whitehead hand
A cheque or Bank of England notes,
And save your native land.

Those Boots.

Our Prince a little change would seek,
To town a short adieu he bids;
In Paris spends his Whitsun week,
And takes “the missus and the kids.”
At Dover on the deck he stands
(See ad.--“The shortest of sea routes”),
And hies him o’er to Calais sands
In tourist tweed and untanned boots.

The cares of State no longer vex,
From Fashion’s whirl he steps aside,
And takes a trip, our future Rex,
And with him goes his silver bride.
They take their boys and girls to see
The show no sceptred hand salutes,
And start, from princely trammels free,
In tourist tweeds and untanned boots.

Prince! standing in the blazing light
That beats upon a modern throne,
’Tis not in royal robes bedight,
I ween, your happiest hours are known.
The white stones on your road of life
Mark where you pluck sweet leisure’s fruits,
And with your boys and girls and wife
Go trips in tweeds and untanned boots.

A Sunday Song.

I stood and I shivered last Sunday night
Till I bade them set the fire alight,
Then I sat with my feet on the fender bar,
And I told them to bring me the whisky jar.
I filled me a glass, and I held it high
As I glared at the gray and the gloomy sky,
And I sang to a sad funereal tune
The doleful dirge of an English June.

“O gruesome herald of Whitsun week,”
I cried as I gazed on the prospect bleak,
“The blazing heat of our one hot day
Has fried us up and has passed away;
And the weary summer of blights and chills
Has come to us big with its thousand ills,
And the lips of the lovers are blue who spoon
In Regent’s Park in our English June.”

A red nose pressed to the window-pane,
The swirling dust and the threatening rain,
A blue-black blight in the raw rough air,
A cut-throat climate and dull despair;
A tear for the days that will come no more,
A dose of physic at twelve and four.
And that is my Sunday afternoon
In the Arctic arms of an English June.

Up the Rigi.

Riding up the mountain
In an open car,
Engine puffing bravely--
O, how high we are!
Higher we are climbing,
To the clouds we sail;
All the world’s beneath us
On the Rigi Rail.

Past the slopes of verdure,
Gay with gold and white,
Past the crags and fissures,
Up the giddy height.
Torrents down below us
Dashing through the vale,
Snowclad peaks above us,
On the Rigi Rail.

Up, still up to cloudland,
While the world below
Shrinks to dots and pigmies
Higher as we go.
All around grows barren;
Timid girls grow pale
As the snow surrounds us
On the Rigi Rail.

Up at last--the summit
Puffing Billy gains,
And the sight that greets us
Pays for all our pains.
Alp on alp far stretching,
Lake and plain and vale
Spread in glory round us
On the Rigi Rail.

Nerves with joy are thrilling
In that wondrous air,
Ne’er did eyes enchanted
See a sight so fair.
Ne’er till memory falters
And my senses fail
Shall I forget that journey
Upon the Rigi Rail.

A Plea for Mercy.

O, do not flog the brutal rough
Who jumps upon his wife,
Or in a little drunken huff
Prods children with a knife.
O, do not flog the brute who takes
The old man by the throat
And chokes him while a search he makes
Of trousers, vest, and coat.

O, do not flog the coward cur
Who pulps a woman’s face;
It cannot do much good to her,
And think of _his_ disgrace.
O, think of all the smart and pain
If his poor hide be thin;
The cat, you know, must leave a stain
On mind as well as skin.

O, do not flog the prowling wretch
Who bashes us for pelf,
But some nice kind old parson fetch,
Or talk to him yourself.
Present him with a kindly tract,
Or pray with him awhile;
Explain that skulls should not be crackt
In such a shocking style.

And when you’ve turned his wrath away
And shown him he was wrong,
Then teach him, if you’ve time to stay,
Some sweet Salvation song.
Far better let ten thousand such
Go free to bash again,
Than one should know the cat’s vile touch
Or feel a moment’s pain.

O, do not flog--in mercy spare
The burglar’s tender hide.
Though murder’s rife, what need we care?
The Scripture’s on our side.
Come then, ye bashing burglar crew,
Put up your sweet mouths--so,
And let the cranks who plead for you
Return you kiss for blow.

If You Were Here.

(ANY HUSBAND TO ANY WIFE, WITH APOLOGIES TO ALFRED AUSTIN.)

If you were here, if you were here,
My butcher’s bill would be more clear,
The Life Guards out for exercise
Would not so often raise their eyes
To where the housemaids smile and smirk,
And play the hours away at work.
If you were here my morning tea
Perchance would slightly stronger be,
My evenings, now so lone and long,
Might know the solace of a song;
I should not feel inclined to shriek
When chairs and tables groan and creak.
My midnight ghosts I should not fear
If you were here, if you were here.

’Tis sad to be alone; but still
There is some sugar round the pill.
I’m master now, and have my way--
There’s no one here to say me nay.
Though all is silent as the tomb,
I smoke my pipe in ev’ry room.
When out no train I rush to catch--
My key goes boldly in the latch.
No more, lest I disturb your sleep,
On tiptoe up the stairs I creep.
Nor do I have to scratch my pate
To think what kept me out so late.
And that I’d oft to do, my dear,
When you were here, when you were here.

Le Brav’ General

It costs some cash to catch the Gauls,
And placard all the Paris walls,
But his big balance never falls.
Who finds the money?

He travels like a little king,
And “cuts a dash” and “does the thing,”
And spares no cost to have his fling.
Who finds the money?

He’s no estate, he’s lost his pay,
Yet thousands go from day to day
In working France for Boulanger.
Who finds the money?

In London he has settled down;
He means to have his fling in town--
A little king without a crown.
Who finds the money?

When kings and princes meet at tea,
When statesmen other statesmen see,
They jerk their thumbs at General B----
And whisper on the strict q.t.,
Who finds the money?

The Paris Exhibition.

Within, without, abroad, at home,
Though all appears a bilious chrome,
With May shall flee dyspeptic throes
And life assume a tint of rose--
For France, the gay and debonair,
Will ask us to her fancy fair,
The Exhibition.

Then East and West and South and North
Will pour their choicest treasures forth,
And all the world will hie away
Upon a pleasant holiday;
While Frenchmen cry, and chink the cash,
“We’re glad Boulanger did not smash
The Exhibition!”

And you, ma mie, of years ago,
Who with me wandered to and fro
Through all the aisles of wonder set
Like gems in some vast coronet--
How sweet you were, ma’mselle, to me!--
Will you be there this time to see
The Exhibition?

O’er both our heads the years have rolled,
And I am stout and growing old;
And you are married, I dare say,
And know a mother’s cares to-day.
Maybe our chairs--bath-chairs, I mean--
May pass some day ere we’ve quite seen
The Exhibition.

The New Legend.

When my liver’s out of order, and my nerves are all awry,
And I want to sit in corners and to tear my hair and cry,
When a demon stands behind me with a razor or a knife,
And suggests the use of either as a short-cut out of life,
When the gloom outside my window is the gloom inside my heart,
And the ghostly sounds about make me shake and make me start,
Then I walk about my dwelling, but my sorrows do not flee
When I find my goods and chattels all were “made in Germany.”

The globes upon my gas-lamps bear that exquisite device,
It is worked upon my carpets and the trap that catches mice;
It is stamped upon my dusters, and imprinted on my hat,
And I half expect to find it on the collar of my cat.
“Made in Germany”‘s the motto on my knocker and my bell,
And the scraper and the doormat have it written large as well;
From the basement to the attic all around those words I see,
And e’en my patent chimney-pots were “made in Germany.”

Then I wander forth for shelter from this legend, but in vain,
For it polks in flaming letters through my agitated brain;
It is stamped on all the lamp-posts and the flagstones at my feet,
And I see it on the helmets of the bobbies on the street.
“Give me respite from this legend!” in my agony I cry,
And my gentle Albert Edward says to comfort me he’ll try;
But while weeping on his bosom there is no relief for me,
For, like everything about me, he was “made in Germany.”

A Mild December.

A balmy breeze o’er London plays,
The summer sun is shining,
The weather’s clerk has (scandal says)
Undoubtedly been dining.

Old fogeys sit about the parks,
And “Dear, can you remember,”
Old Darby to old Joan remarks,
“Such mildness in December?”

When Master Sandford takes his walks
Abroad with Master Merton,
He says, “O, ain’t I hot, O lawks,
With my thick flannel shirt on!”

“My pupils will take notice, please,”
Exclaims the Reverend Barlow,
“It’s warmer here by seven degrees
Than ’tis in Monte Carlo.”

For garden-seats the public run
To Shoolbred’s and to Maple’s;
It’s five degrees more in the sun
In London than in Naples!

I shut my eyes and dream a dream
About our winter season,
That does not seem to have a gleam
Of common-sense or reason.

I dream that from the southern land
The foreigners are flocking;
They promenade along the Strand,
The Thames Embankment blocking.

The train de luxe from every part
Brings foreigners to London;
The Riviera breaks its heart,
Algeria is undone.

In search of sun from Southern Spain
The Andalusian wanders;
The Roman lolls in Drury Lane,
The Turk in Holborn ponders.

The world this mild December flocks
To our delightful climate;
Rich Russian ’gainst rich German knocks,
And princeling jostles primate.

The great hotels are packed and jammed,
And all the trades are booming,
The theatres and cafés crammed,
And summer roses blooming.

I dream a dream of London made
A winter spot delightful;
I wake from sleep, and start dismayed
To find the weather frightful!

No balmy breeze o’er London plays,
No summer sun is shining;
’Tis not the clerk (so scandal says)
But _I_ who have been dining.

The Last Duke.

They had taken the brightest, the nicest, the best;
They had carefully sorted and sampled the rest;
America’s daughters no quarter had shown,
And but one Duke of Britain was blooming alone.

Belgravian mothers in frenzied despair
Tore out by the roots their luxuriant hair,
And the maidens of Albion shuddered and sighed,
And but for their eyes would have certainly cried.

Every prize of the season had gone to the States,
The American girls had the best of the weights;
The “piles” of the pa’s and their personal charms
Had proved in the battle all-conquering arms.

And now but one Duke there remained to be had.
He was fat, he was fifty, and said to be mad;
But the belles of Great Britain to rescue him swore
From the sirens who hail from Columbia’s shore.

Then the belles of Columbia picked up the glove,
And encouraged his grace to make desperate love;
They crowded Cunarders and weighted White Stars,
And descended on London in drawing-room cars.

But the maidens who flirt ’neath the Union Jack
At the Yankee invasion weren’t taken aback,
Though it must be confessed there were exquisite types
Of feminine flirts ’neath the Stars and the Stripes.

The Duke stood aghast ’twixt the double array,
But endeavoured to all some attention to pay.
First he smiled at a Briton, then ogled a Yank,
Then bolted, and hailed the first cab on the rank.

He drove to the station, and, catching the train,
He sailed o’er the stormy and murderous main.
He landed at Calais and fell at the feet
Of the first pretty French girl he met in the street.

He asked for her hand, and the maiden replied,
“Avec plaisir, m’sieu. Here’s a church; step inside.”
They were married at once, and next day they set sail
By the London and Chatham’s first outgoing mail.

Sir Algernon Borthwick, who edits the _Post_,
Had received the first news from the opposite coast;
And the maids of our isles and the maids of the States
In special editions were told of their fates.

“Peace with honour” at once was proclaimed ’twixt the fair
(As neither had won what did either set care?);
And the Duke was much praised on both sides by the Press,
And the little French Duchess is quite a success.

To the Fog.

A thousand welcomes let us sing
To that dear old November fog
Which harbingers the days that bring
The early gas, the flaming log.

Ah! well we know, sweet fog, when first
You wrap the town in your embrace,
The winter from its shell has burst,
And come to bless the human race.

I love the merry winter when
The day is darker than the night,
For then, contented in my den,
I sit beside the fire and write.

I love the fog that wraps in gloom
My second-class suburban square;
For then within my dingy room
I light the gas, and let it flare.

I hate the dreary days and love
The nights that shut the black world out;
And so I prize, all things above,
The fog that puts the day to rout.

The Reminiscences of Mr. John Dobbs.

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

(WITH THE SPELLING CORRECTED, THE GRAMMAR LOOKED TO, AND THE
LANGUAGE TOUCHED UP BY A LITERARY FRIEND.)

My name is John Dobbs. In the year ’58
I was born in a street which I fear was fifth-rate.
My pa was a gent who had had a reverse,
And my ma took in other folks’ babies to nurse.

Thus early my life-long acquaintance began
With the folks who are first in Society’s van;
In the cradle next mine slept the son of a peer,
Who had gone to the dogs all through skittles and beer.

At six I developed a beautiful voice,
Which made the fond hearts of my parents rejoice;
I was sent out to sing with a man in the street,
But I plied my vocation among the élite.

We sang in the squares where proud nobles reside;
And often a duchess’s face I espied,
As she peered o’er the blind at the little artiste;
Thus I grew to mind duchesses not in the least.

I pass o’er my youth, merely pausing to state
That I met many folks who were famous and great,
And it frequently happened my supper I took
With a tip-top celebrity’s housemaid or cook.

I was just in the twentieth year of my age
When I made my début on the music-hall stage;
And ’twas there that I soon made a very big name,
And earned all my subsequent fortune and fame.

I’d a song with a chorus of “jammy jam-jam,”
That was sung from Southend to Seringapatam;
And often, when singing my song at the halls,
I have seen lords and marquises smile in the stalls.

Lord Beaconsfield once I’d the honour to meet--
His lordship was walking up Parliament Street--
By the merest of chances I trod on his toe,
And his lordship looked up and remarked to me “Oh!”

Conversations like these I have frequently had
With the rich and the great, and the good and the bad;
And I once had the pleasure and honour to dine
With the Prince, who’s a very great patron of
mine.

The banquet, I own, was a public affair,
At which his Royal Highness had taken the chair.
And I paid for my ticket; but still I’ve a right
To say with the Prince I had dinner that night.

And now, as folks’ memoirses seem all the go,
I’ve thought that the public might p’raps like to know
All about the great people of whom I can speak
With the candour becoming a Lion Comique.

Pickpocket Poems