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Villon's Straight Tip to All Cross Coves 1857

KNIFE-GRINDER

Story? God bless you! I have none to tell, sir;
Only, last night, a-drinking at the Chequers,
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
Torn in a scuffle

Constables came up for to take me into
Custody; they took me before the justice;
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish
Stocks for a vagrant.

I should be glad to drink your honor's health in
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence;
But for my part, I never love to meddle

With politics, sir.

FRIEND OF HUMANITY

I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first,Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance!— Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,

Spiritless outcast!

(Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.)

George Canning [1770-1827]

VILLON'S STRAIGHT TIP TO ALL CROSS COVES "Tout aux tavernes et aux fiells."

SUPPOSE you screeve? or go cheap-jack?
Or fake the broads? or fig a nag?

Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack?
Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag?
Suppose you duff? or nose and lag?
Or get the straight, and land your pot?
How do you melt the multy swag?
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack;
Or moskeneer, or flash the drag;
Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack;

Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag;

Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag; Rattle the tats, or mark the spot;

You can not bag a single stag; Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

flag?

Suppose you try a different tack,
And on the square you flash your
At penny-a-lining make your whack,
Or with the mummers mug and gag?
For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag!
At any graft, no matter what,

Your merry goblins soon stravag:
Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

THE MORAL

It's up the spout and Charley Wag With wipes and tickers and what not, Until the squeezer nips your scrag, Booze and the blowens cop the lot.

William Ernest Henley [1849-1903]

VILLON'S BALLADE

OF GOOD COUNSEL, TO HIS FRIENDS OF EVIL LIFE

NAY, be you pardoner or cheat,
Or cogger keen, or mumper shy,

You'll burn your fingers at the feat,
And howl like other folks that fry.

All evil folks that love a lie!

And where goes gain that greed amasses,

By wile, and guile, and thievery?

'Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

Rhyme, rail, dance, play the cymbals sweet,

With game, and shame, and jollity,

Go jigging through the field and street,
With myst'ry and morality;

Win gold at gleek, and that will fly,

Where all your gain at passage passes,—
And that's? You know as well as I,
'Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

A Little Brother of the Rich

1859

Nay, forth from all such filth retreat,

Go delve and ditch, in wet or dry,

Turn groom, give horse and mule their meat,
If you've no clerkly skill to ply;
You'll gain enough, with husbandry,
But sow hempseed and such wild grasses,
And where goes all you take thereby?-
'Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

ENVOY

Your clothes, your hose, your broidery,
Your linen that the snow surpasses,
Or ere they're worn, off, off they fly,
'Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

Andrew Lang [1844-1912]

A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE RICH

To put new shingles on old roofs;

To give old women wadded skirts;

To treat premonitory coughs
With seasonable flannel shirts;

To soothe the stings of poverty

And keep the jackal from the door,These are the works that occupy

The Little Sister of the Poor.

She carries, everywhere she goes,

Kind words and chickens, jams and coals;

Poultices for corporeal woes,

And sympathy for downcast souls:

Her currant jelly, her quinine,

The lips of fever move to bless;

She makes the humble sick-room shine
With unaccustomed tidiness.

A heart of hers the instant twin

And vivid counterpart is mine;

I also serve my fellow-men,

Though in a somewhat different line.

The Poor, and their concerns, she has
Monopolized, because of which

It falls to me to labor as

A Little Brother of the Rich.

For their sake at no sacrifice
Does my devoted spirit quail;
I give their horses exercise;

As ballast on their yachts I sail.
Upon their tallyhos I ride

And brave the chances of a storm;

I even use my own inside

To keep their wines and victuals warm.

Those whom we strive to benefit

Dear to our hearts soon grow to be;

I love my Rich, and I admit

That they are very good to me.

Succor the Poor, my sisters,-I,

While heaven shall still vouchsafe me health,

Will strive to share and mollify

The trials of abounding wealth.

Edward Sandford Martin [1856

THE WORLD'S WAY

Ar Haroun's court it chanced, upon a time,
An Arab poet made this pleasant rhyme:

"The new moon is a horseshoe, wrought of God, Wherewith the Sultan's stallion shall be shod."

On hearing this, the Sultan smiled, and gave
The man a gold-piece. Sing again, O slave!

Above his lute the happy singer bent,
And turned another gracious compliment.

And, as before, the smiling Sultan gave
The man a sekkah. Sing again, O slave!

Again the verse came, fluent as a rill
That wanders, silver-footed, down a hill.

For My Own Monument

The Sultan, listening, nodded as before,
Still gave the gold, and still demanded more.

The nimble fancy that had climbed so high
Grew weary with its climbing by and by:

1861

Strange discords rose; the sense went quite amiss;
The singer's rhymes refused to meet and kiss:

Invention flagged, the lute had got unstrung,
And twice he sang the song already sung.

The Sultan, furious, called a mute, and said,
O Musta, straightway whip me off his head!

Poets! not in Arabia alone

You get beheaded when your skill is gone.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1837-1907]

FOR MY OWN MONUMENT

As doctors give physic by way of prevention,
Mat, alive and in health, of his tombstone took care;
For delays are unsafe, and his pious intention
May haply be never fulfilled by his heir.

Then take Mat's word for it, the sculptor is paid;
That the figure is fine, pray believe your own eye;

Yet credit but lightly what more may be said,
For we flatter ourselves, and teach marble to lie.

Yet counting as far as to fifty his years,

His virtues and vices were as other men's are; High hopes he conceived, and he smothered great fears, In a life parti-colored, half pleasure, half care.

Nor to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave,
He strove to make interest and freedom agree;

In public employments industrious and grave,
And alone with his friends, lord! how merry was he!

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