Songs of a Savoyard | Page 8

Cytherean posies
He would gather aught but roses.
In a nest of weeds and nettles,
Lay a violet, half hidden;
Hoping
that his glance unbidden
Yet might fall upon her petals.
Though she
lived alone, apart,
Hope lay nestling at her heart,
But, alas! the cruel
awaking
Set her little heart a-breaking,
For he gathered for his
posies
Only roses - only roses!
Ballad: The Rover's Apology
Oh, gentlemen, listen, I pray;
Though I own that my heart has been
ranging,
Of nature the laws I obey,
For nature is constantly
changing.
The moon in her phases is found,
The time and the wind

and the weather,
The months in succession come round,
And you
don't find two Mondays together.
Consider the moral, I pray,
Nor
bring a young fellow to sorrow,
Who loves this young lady to-day,

And loves that young lady to-morrow!
You cannot eat breakfast all day.
Nor is it the act of a sinner,
When
breakfast is taken away,
To turn your attention to dinner;
And it's
not in the range of belief
That you could hold him as a glutton,

Who, when he is tired of beef,
Determines to tackle the mutton.
But
this I am ready to say,
If it will diminish their sorrow,
I'll marry this
lady to-day,
And I'll marry that lady to-morrow!
Ballad: An Appeal
Oh! is there not one maiden breast
Which does not feel the moral
beauty
Of making worldly interest
Subordinate to sense of duty?

Who would not give up willingly
All matrimonial ambition
To
rescue such a one as I
From his unfortunate position?
Oh, is there not one maiden here,
Whose homely face and bad
complexion
Have caused all hopes to disappear
Of ever winning
man's affection?
To such a one, if such there be,
I swear by
heaven's arch above you,
If you will cast your eyes on me, -

However plain you be - I'll love you!
Ballad: The Reward Of Merit
DR. BELVILLE was regarded as the CRICHTON of his age:
His
tragedies were reckoned much too thoughtful for the stage; His poems
held a noble rank, although it's very true
That, being very proper, they
were read by very few.
He was a famous Painter, too, and shone upon
the "line,"
And even MR. RUSKIN came and worshipped at his
shrine;
But, alas, the school he followed was heroically high -
The
kind of Art men rave about, but very seldom buy;
And everybody
said
"How can he be repaid -
This very great - this very good - this

very gifted man?"
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!
He was a great Inventor, and discovered, all alone,
A plan for making
everybody's fortune but his own;
For, in business, an Inventor's little
better than a fool,
And my highly-gifted friend was no exception to
the rule.
His poems - people read them in the Quarterly Reviews -

His pictures - they engraved them in the ILLUSTRATED NEWS - His
inventions - they, perhaps, might have enriched him by degrees, But all
his little income went in Patent Office fees;
And everybody said

"How can he be repaid -
This very great - this very good - this very
gifted man?"
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!
At last the point was given up in absolute despair,
When a distant
cousin died, and he became a millionaire,
With a county seat in
Parliament, a moor or two of grouse,
And a taste for making
inconvenient speeches in the House!
THEN it flashed upon Britannia
that the fittest of rewards
Was, to take him from the Commons and to
put him in the Lords! And who so fit to sit in it, deny it if you can,
As
this very great - this very good - this very gifted man? (Though I'm
more than half afraid
That it sometimes may be said
That we never
should have revelled in that source of proper pride, However great his
merits - if his cousin hadn't died!)
Ballad: The Magnet And The Churn
A MAGNET hung in a hardware shop,
And all around was a loving
crop
Of scissors and needles, nails and knives,
Offering love for all
their lives;
But for iron the Magnet felt no whim,
Though he
charmed iron, it charmed not him,
From needles and nails and knives
he'd turn,
For he'd set his love on a Silver Churn!
His most aesthetic,

Very magnetic
Fancy took this turn -
"If I can wheedle
A knife
or needle,
Why not a Silver Churn?"
And Iron and Steel expressed surprise,
The needles opened their
well-drilled eyes,
The pen-knives felt "shut up," no doubt,
The

scissors declared themselves "cut out,"
The kettles they boiled with
rage, 'tis said,
While every nail went off its head,
And hither and
thither began to roam,
Till a hammer came up - and drove it home,

While this magnetic
Peripatetic
Lover he lived to learn,
By no
endeavour,
Can Magnet ever
Attract a Silver Churn!
Ballad: The Family Fool
Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon,
If you listen to popular
rumour;
From morning to night he's so joyous and bright,
And he
bubbles with wit and good humour!
He's so quaint and so terse, both
in prose and in verse;
Yet though people forgive his transgression,

There are one or two rules that all Family Fools
Must observe, if they
love their