Haunted
Haunted? Ay, in a social way
By a body of ghosts in dread array;
But no conventional spectres they
Appalling, grim, and tricky:
I quail at mine as Id never quail
At a fine traditional spectre pale,
With a turnip head and a ghostly wail,
And a splash of blood on the dickey!
Mine are horrible, social ghosts,
Speeches and women and guests and hosts,
Weddings and morning calls and toasts,
In every bad variety:
Ghosts who hover about the grave
Of all thats manly, free, and brave:
Youll find their names on the architrave
Of that charnel-house, Society.
Black Mondayblack as its school-room ink
With its dismal boys that snivel and think
Of its nauseous messes to eat and drink,
And its frozen tank to wash in.
That was the first that brought me grief,
And made me weep, till I sought relief
In an emblematical handkerchief,
To choke such baby bosh in.
First and worst in the grim array-
Ghosts of ghosts that have gone their way,
Which I wouldnt revive for a single day
For all the wealth of PLUTUS
Are the horrible ghosts that school-days scared:
If the classical ghost that BRUTUS dared
Was the ghost of his Caesar unprepared,
Im sure I pity BRUTUS.
I pass to critical seventeen;
The ghost of that terrible wedding scene,
When an elderly Colonel stole my Queen,
And woke my dream of heaven.
No schoolgirl decked in her nurse-room curls
Was my gushing innocent Queen of Pearls;
If she wasnt a girl of a thousand girls,
She was one of forty-seven!
I see the ghost of my first cigar,
Of the thence-arising family jar
Of my maiden brief (I was at the Bar,
And I called the Judge Your wushup!)
Of reckless days and reckless nights,
With wrenched-off knockers, extinguished lights,
Unholy songs and tipsy fights,
Which I strove in vain to hush up.
Ghosts of fraudulent joint-stock banks,
Ghosts of copy, declined with thanks,
Of novels returned in endless ranks,
And thousands more, I suffer.
The only line to fitly grace
My humble tomb, when Ive run my race,
Is, Reader, this is the resting-place
Of an unsuccessful duffer.
Ive fought them all, these ghosts of mine,
But the weapons Ive used are sighs and brine,
And now that Im nearly forty-nine,
Old age is my chiefest bogy;
For my hair is thinning away at the crown,
And the silver fights with the worn-out brown;
And a general verdict sets me down
As an irreclaimable fogy.
The Bishop And The Busman
It was a Bishop bold,
And London was his see,
He was short and stout and round about
And zealous as could be.
It also was a Jew,
Who drove a Putney bus
For flesh of swine however fine
He did not care a cuss.
His name was HASH BAZ BEN,
And JEDEDIAH too,
And SOLOMON and ZABULON
This bus-directing Jew.
The Bishop said, said he,
Ill see what I can do
To Christianise and make you wise,
You poor benighted Jew.
So every blessed day
That bus he rode outside,
From Fulham town, both up and down,
And loudly thus he cried:
His name is HASH BAZ BEN,
And JEDEDIAH too,
And SOLOMON and ZABULON
This bus-directing Jew.
At first the busman smiled,
And rather liked the fun
He merely smiled, that Hebrew child,
And said, Eccentric one!
And gay young dogs would wait
To see the bus go by
(These gay young dogs, in striking togs),
To hear the Bishop cry:
Observe his grisly beard,
His race it clearly shows,
He sticks no fork in ham or pork
Observe, my friends, his nose.
His name is HASH BAZ BEN,
And JEDEDIAH too,
And SOLOMON and ZABULON
This bus-directing Jew.
But though at first amused,
Yet after seven years,
This Hebrew child got rather riled,
And melted into tears.
He really almost feared
To leave his poor abode,
His nose, and name, and beard became
A byword on that road.
At length he swore an oath,
The reason he would know
Ill call and see why ever he
Does persecute me so!
The good old Bishop sat
On his ancestral chair,
The busman came, sent up his name,
And laid his grievance bare.
Benighted Jew, he said
(The good old Bishop did),
Be Christian, you, instead of Jew
Become a Christian kid!
Ill neer annoy you more.
Indeed? replied the Jew;
Shall I be freed? You will, indeed!
Then Done! said he, with you!
The organ which, in man,
Between the eyebrows grows,
Fell from his face, and in its place
He found a Christian nose.
His tangled Hebrew beard,
Which to his waist came down,
Was now a pair of whiskers fair
His name ADOLPHUS BROWN!
He wedded in a year
That prelates daughter JANE,
Hes grown quite fairhas auburn hair
His wife is far from plain.
The Troubadour
A TROUBADOUR he played
Without a castle wall,
Within, a hapless maid
Responded to his call.
Oh, willow, woe is me!
Alack and well-a-day!
If I were only free
Id hie me far away!
Unknown her face and name,
But this he knew right well,
The maidens wailing came
From out a dungeon cell.
A hapless woman lay
Within that dungeon grim
That fact, Ive heard him say,
Was quite enough for him.
I will not sit or lie,
Or eat or drink, I vow,
Till thou art free as I,
Or I as pent as thou.
Her tears then ceased to flow,
Her wails no longer rang,
And tuneful in her woe
The prisoned maiden sang:
Oh, stranger, as you play,
I recognize your touch;
And all that I can say
Is, thank you very much.
He seized his clarion straight,
And blew thereat, until
A warden oped the gate.
Oh, what might be your will?
Ive come, Sir Knave, to see
The master of these halls:
A maid unwillingly
Lies prisoned in their walls.
With barely stifled sigh
That porter drooped his head,
With teardrops in his eye,
A many, sir, he said.
He stayed to hear no more,
But pushed that porter by,
And shortly stood before
SIR HUGH DE PECKHAM RYE.
SIR HUGH he darkly frowned,
What would you, sir, with me?
The troubadour he downed
Upon his bended knee.
Ive come, DE PECKHAM RYE,
To do a Christian task;
You ask me what would I?
It is not much I ask.
Release these maidens, sir,
Whom you dominion oer
Particularly her
Upon the second floor.
And if you dont, my lord
He here stood bolt upright,
And tapped a tailors sword
Come out, you cad, and fight!
SIR HUGH he calledand ran
The warden from the gate:
Go, show this gentleman
The maid in Forty-eight.
By many a cell they past,
And stopped at length before
A portal, bolted fast:
The man unlocked the door.
He called inside the gate
With coarse and brutal shout,
Come, step it, Forty-eight!
And Forty-eight stepped out.
They gets it pretty hot,
The maidens what we cotch
Two years this ladys got
For collaring a wotch.
Oh, ah!indeedI see,
The troubadour exclaimed
If I may make so free,
How is this castle named?
The wardens eyelids fill,
And sighing, he replied,
Of gloomy Pentonville
This is the female side!
The minstrel did not wait
The Warden stout to thank,
But recollected straight
Hed business at the Bank.