TO THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE

BY A MISERABLE WRETCH

Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through pathless realms of Space
Roll on!
What, though I'm in a sorry case?
What, though I cannot meet my bills?
What, though I suffer toothache's ills?
What, though I swallow countless pills?
Never you mind!
Roll on!

Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through seas of inky air
Roll on!
It's true I've got no shirts to wear;
It's true my butcher's bill is due;
It's true my prospects all look blue—
But don't let that unsettle you!
Never you mind!
Roll on!

(It rolls on.)

GENERAL JOHN

The bravest names for fire and flames,
And all that mortal durst,
Were General John and Private James,
Of the Sixty-seventy-first.

General John was a soldier tried,
A chief of warlike dons;
A haughty stride and a withering pride
Were Major-General John's.

A sneer would play on his martial phiz,
Superior birth to show;
"Pish!" was a favorite word of his,
And he often said "Ho! ho!"

Full-Private James described might be,
As a man of a mournful mind;
No characteristic trait had he
Of any distinctive kind.

From the ranks, one day, cried Private James
"Oh! Major-General John,
I've doubts of our respective names,
My mournful mind upon.

"A glimmering thought occurs to me,
(Its source I can't unearth)
But I've a kind of notion we
Were cruelly changed at birth.

"I've a strange idea, each other's names
That we have each got on,
Such things have been," said Private James.
"They have!" sneered General John.

"My General John, I swear upon
My oath I think 'tis so"—
"Pish!" proudly sneered his General John,
And he also said "Ho! ho!"

"My General John! my General John!
My General John!" quoth he,
"This aristocratical sneer upon
Your face I blush to see!

"No truly great or generous cove
Deserving of them names
Would sneer at a fixed idea that's drove
In the mind of a Private James!"

Said General John, "Upon your claims
No need your breath to waste;
If this is a joke, Full-Private James,
It's a joke of doubtful taste.

"But being a man of doubtless worth,
If you feel certain quite
That we were probably changed at birth,
I'll venture to say you're right."

So General John as Private James
Fell in, parade upon;
And Private James, by change of names,
Was Major-General John.

SIR GUY THE CRUSADER

Sir Guy was a doughty crusader,
A muscular knight,
Ever ready to fight,
A very determined invader.
And Dickey de Lion's delight.

Lenore was a Saracen maiden,
Brunette, statuesque,
The reverse of grotesque;
Her pa was a bagman at Aden,
Her mother she played in burlesque.

A coryphee pretty and loyal.
In amber and red,
The ballet she led;
Her mother performed at the Royal,
Lenore at the Saracen's Head.

Of face and of figure majestic,
She dazzled the cits—
Ecstaticized pits;—
Her troubles were only domestic,
But drove her half out of her wits.

Her father incessantly lashed her,
On water and bread
She was grudgingly fed;
Whenever her father he thrashed her
Her mother sat down on her head.

Guy saw her, and loved her, with reason,
For beauty so bright,
Set him mad with delight;
He purchased a stall for the season
And sat in it every night.

His views were exceedingly proper;
He wanted to wed,
So he called at her shed
And saw her progenitor whop her—
Her mother sit down on her head.

"So pretty," said he, "and so trusting!
You brute of a dad,
You unprincipled cad,
Your conduct is really disgusting.
Come, come, now, admit it's too bad!

"You're a turbaned old Turk, and malignant;
Your daughter Lenore
I intensely adore
And I cannot help feeling indignant,
A fact that I hinted before.

"To see a fond father employing
A deuce of a knout
For to bang her about.
To a sensitive lover's annoying."
Said the bagman, "Crusader, get out!"

Says Guy, "Shall a warrior laden
With a big spiky knob.
Stand idly and sob.
While a beautiful Saracen maiden
Is whipped by a Saracen snob?

"To London I'll go from my charmer."
Which he did, with his loot
(Seven hats and a flute),
And was nabbed for his Sydenham armor,
At Mr. Ben-Samuel's suit.

Sir Guy he was lodged in the Compter,
Her pa, in a rage,
Died (don't know his age),
His daughter, she married the prompter,
Grew bulky and quitted the stage.

KING BORRIA BUNGALEE BOO

King Borria Bungalee Boo
Was a man-eating African swell;
His sigh was a hullaballoo,
His whisper a horrible yell—
A horrible, horrible yell!

Four subjects, and all of them male,
To Borria doubled the knee,
They were once on a far larger scale,
But he'd eaten the balance, you see
("Scale" and "balance" is punning, you see.)

There was haughty Pish-Tush-Pooh-Bah,
There was lumbering Doodle-Dum-Deh,
Despairing Alack-a-Dey-Ah,
And good little Tootle-Tum-Teh—
Exemplary Tootle-Tum-Teh.

One day there was grief in the crew,
For they hadn't a morsel of meat,
And Borria Bungalee Boo
Was dying for something to eat—
"Come provide me with something to eat!"

"Alack-a-Dey, famished I feel;
Oh, good little Tootle-Tum-Teh,
Where on earth shall I look for a meal?
For I haven't no dinner to-day!—
Not a morsel of dinner to-day!

"Dear Tootle-Tum, what shall we do?
Come, get us a meal, or in truth,
If you don't we shall have to eat you,
Oh, adorable friend of our youth!
Thou beloved little friend of our youth!"

And he answered, "Oh Bungalee Boo,
For a moment I hope you will wait—
Tippy-Wippity Tol-the-Rol-Loo
Is the queen of a neighboring state—
A remarkably neighboring state.

"Tippy-Wippity Tol-the-Rol-Loo,
She would pickle deliciously cold—
And her four pretty Amazons, too,
Are enticing, and not very old—
Twenty-seven is not very old.

"There is neat little Titty-Fol-Leh,
There is rollicking Tral-the-Ral-Lah,
There is jocular Waggety-Weh.
There is musical Doh-Reh-Mi-Fah—
There's the nightingale Doh-Reh-Mi-Fah!"

So the forces of Bungalee Boo
Marched forth in a terrible row,
And the ladies who fought for Queen Loo
Prepared to encounter the foe—
This dreadful insatiate foe!

But they sharpened no weapons at all,
And they poisoned no arrows—not they!
They made ready to conquer or fall
In a totally different way—
An entirely different way.

With a crimson and pearly-white dye
They endeavored to make themselves fair,
With black they encircled each eye,
And with yellow they painted their hair
(It was wool, but they thought it was hair).

And the forces they met in the field—
And the men of King Borria said,
"Amazonians, immediately yield!"
And their arrows they drew to the head,
Yes, drew them right up to the head.

But jocular Waggety-Weh,
Ogled Doodle-Dum-Deh (which was wrong)
And neat little Titty-Fol-Leh,
Said, "Tootle-Tum, you go along!
You naughty old dear, go along!"

And rollicking Tral-the-Ral-Lah
Tapped Alack-a-Dey-Ah with her fan;
And musical Doh-Reh-Mi-Fah,
Said "Pish, go away, you bad man!
Go away, you delightful young man!"

And the Amazons simpered and sighed,
And they ogled, and giggled, and flushed,
And they opened their pretty eyes wide,
And they chuckled, and flirted, and blushed
(At least, if they could, they'd have blushed).

But haughty Pish-Tush-Pooh-Bah
Said, "Alack-a-Dey, what does this mean?"
And despairing Alack-a-Dey-Ah
Said, "They think us uncommonly green,
Ha! ha! most uncommonly green!"

Even blundering Doodle-Dum-Deh
Was insensible quite to their leers
And said good little Tootle-Tum-Teh,
"It's your blood we desire, pretty dears—
We have come for our dinners, my dears!"

And the Queen of the Amazons fell
To Borria Bungalee Boo,
In a mouthful he gulped, with a yell,
Tippy-Wippity Tol-the-Rol-Loo—
The pretty Queen Tol-the-Rol-Loo.

And neat little Titty-Fol-Leh
Was eaten by Pish-Pooh-Bah,
And light-hearted Waggety-Weh
By dismal Alack-a-Deh-Ah—
Despairing Alack-a-Deh-Ah.

And rollicking Tral-the-Ral-Lah
Was eaten by Doodle-Dum-Deh,
And musical Doh-Reh-Mi-Fah
By good little Tootle-Tum-Teh—
Exemplary Tootle-Tum-Teh!

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
I'd hie me far away!"

Unknown her face and name,
But this he knew right well,
The maiden's wailing came
From out a dungeon cell.

A hapless woman lay
Within that dungeon grim—
That fact, I've 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?"

"I've 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.

"I've 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 o'er—
Particularly her
Upon the second floor.

"And if you don't, my lord"—
He here stood bolt upright,
And tapped a tailor's sword—
"Come out, you cad, and fight!"

Sir Hugh he called—and 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 lady's got
For collaring a wotch."

"Oh, ah!—indeed—I see,"
The troubadour exclaimed—
"If I may make so free,
How is this castle named?"

The warden's 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
He'd business at the Bank.