Lorenzo De Lardy
DALILAH DE DARDY adored
The very correctest of cards,
LORENZO DE LARDY, a lord
He was one of Her Majestys Guards.
DALILAH DE DARDY was fat,
DALILAH DE DARDY was old
(No doubt in the world about that)
But DALILAH DE DARDY had gold.
LORENZO DE LARDY was tall,
The flower of maidenly pets,
Young ladies would love at his call,
But LORENZO DE LARDY had debts.
His money-position was queer,
And one of his favourite freaks
Was to hide himself three times a year,
In Paris, for several weeks.
Many days didnt pass him before
He fanned himself into a flame,
For a beautiful DAM DU COMPTWORE,
And this was her singular name:
ALICE EULALIE CORALINE
EUPHROSINE COLOMBINA THÉRÈSE
JULIETTE STEPHANIE CELESTINE
CHARLOTTE RUSSE DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE.
She booked all the orders and tin,
Accoutred in showy fal-lal,
At a two-fifty Restaurant, in
The glittering Palais Royal.
Hed gaze in her orbit of blue,
Her hand he would tenderly squeeze,
But the words of her tongue that he knew
Were limited strictly to these:
CORALINE CELESTINE EULALIE,
Houp là! Je vous aime, oui, mossoo,
Combien donnez moi aujourdhui
Bonjour, Mademoiselle, parlez voo.
MADEMOISELLE DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE
Was a witty and beautiful miss,
Extremely correct in her ways,
But her English consisted of this:
Oh my! pretty man, if you please,
Blom boodin, biftek, currie lamb,
Bouldogue, two franc half, quite ze cheese,
Rosbif, me spik Angleesh, godam.
A waiter, for seasons before,
Had basked in her beautiful gaze,
And burnt to dismember MILOR,
He loved DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE.
He said to her, Méchante THÉRÈSE,
Avec désespoir tu maccables.
Penses-tu, DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE,
Ses intentions sont honorables?
Flirtez toujours, ma belle, si tu ôses
Je me vengerai ainsi, ma chère,
Je lui dirai de quoi lon compose
Vol au vent à la Financière!
LORD LARDY knew nothing of this
The waiters devotion ignored,
But he gazed on the beautiful miss,
And never seemed weary or bored.
The waiter would screw up his nerve,
His fingers hed snap and hed dance
And LORD LARDY would smile and observe,
How strange are the customs of France!
Well, after delaying a space,
His tradesmen no longer would wait:
Returning to England apace,
He yielded himself to his fate.
LORD LARDY espoused, with a groan,
MISS DARDYS developing charms,
And agreed to tag on to his own,
Her name and her newly-found arms.
The waiter he knelt at the toes
Of an ugly and thin coryphée,
Who danced in the hindermost rows
At the Théatre des Variétés.
MADEMOISELLE DE LA SAUCE MAYONNAISE
Didnt yield to a gnawing despair
But married a soldier, and plays
As a pretty and pert Vivandière.
DisillusionedBy An Ex-Enthusiast
Oh, that my soul its gods could see
As years ago they seemed to me
When first I painted them;
Invested with the circumstance
Of old conventional romance:
Exploded theorem!
The bard who could, all men above,
Inflame my soul with songs of love,
And, with his verse, inspire
The craven soul who feared to die
With all the glow of chivalry
And old heroic fire;
I found him in a beerhouse tap
Awaking from a gin-born nap,
With pipe and sloven dress;
Amusing chums, who fooled his bent,
With muddy, maudlin sentiment,
And tipsy foolishness!
The novelist, whose painting pen
To legions of fictitious men
A real existence lends,
Brain-people whom we rarely fail,
Wheneer we hear their names, to hail
As old and welcome friends;
I found in clumsy snuffy suit,
In seedy glove, and blucher boot,
Uncomfortably big.
Particularly commonplace,
With vulgar, coarse, stockbroking face,
And spectacles and wig.
My favourite actor who, at will,
With mimic woe my eyes could fill
With unaccustomed brine:
A being who appeared to me
(Before I knew him well) to be
A song incarnadine;
I found a coarse unpleasant man
With speckled chinunhealthy, wan
Of self-importance full:
Existing in an atmosphere
That reeked of gin and pipes and beer
Conceited, fractious, dull.
The warrior whose ennobled name
Is woven with his countrys fame,
Triumphant over all,
I found weak, palsied, bloated, blear;
His province seemed to be, to leer
At bonnets in Pall Mall.
Would that ye always shone, who write,
Bathed in your own innate limelight,
And ye who battles wage,
Or that in darkness I had died
Before my soul had ever sighed
To see you off the stage!
Babettes Love
BABETTE she was a fisher gal,
With jupon striped and cap in crimps.
She passed her days inside the Halle,
Or catching little nimble shrimps.
Yet she was sweet as flowers in May,
With no professional bouquet.
JACOT was, of the Customs bold,
An officer, at gay Boulogne,
He loved BABETTEhis love he told,
And sighed, Oh, soyez vous my own!
But Non! said she, JACOT, my pet,
Vous êtes trop scraggy pour BABETTE.
Of one alone I nightly dream,
An able mariner is he,
And gaily serves the Genral Steam-
Boat Navigation Companee.
Ill marry him, if he but will
His name, I rather think, is BILL.
I see him when hes not aware,
Upon our hospitable coast,
Reclining with an easy air
Upon the Port against a post,
A-thinking of, Ill dare to say,
His native Chelsea far away!
Oh, mon! exclaimed the Customs bold,
Mes yeux! he said (which means my eye)
Oh, chère! he also cried, Im told,
Par Jove, he added, with a sigh.
Oh, mon! oh, chère! mes yeux! par Jove!
Je naime pas cet enticing cove!
The Panthers captain stood hard by,
He was a man of morals strict
If eer a sailor winked his eye,
Straightway he had that sailor licked,
Mast-headed all (such was his code)