Villon's Straight Tip to All Cross Coves 1857 KNIFE-GRINDER Story? God bless you! I have none to tell, sir; Constables came up for to take me into I should be glad to drink your honor's health in 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 thimble-rig? or knap a yack? Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack; 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, Your merry goblins soon stravag: 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, You'll burn your fingers at the feat, 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, Win gold at gleek, and that will fly, Where all your gain at passage passes,— 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, ENVOY Your clothes, your hose, your broidery, 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 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 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 It falls to me to labor as A Little Brother of the Rich. For their sake at no sacrifice As ballast on their yachts I sail. 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, "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 Above his lute the happy singer bent, And, as before, the smiling Sultan gave Again the verse came, fluent as a rill For My Own Monument The Sultan, listening, nodded as before, The nimble fancy that had climbed so high 1861 Strange discords rose; the sense went quite amiss; Invention flagged, the lute had got unstrung, The Sultan, furious, called a mute, and said, 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, Then take Mat's word for it, the sculptor is paid; Yet credit but lightly what more may be said, 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, In public employments industrious and grave, |