



Produced by Donald Lainson





BALLADS

By William Makepeace Thackeray



CONTENTS:


     The Chronicle of the Drum.  Part I
                                 Part II
     Abd-el-Kader at Toulon; or, The Caged Hawk
     The King of Brentford's Testament
     The White Squall
     Peg of Limavaddy
     May-Day Ode
     The Ballad of Bouillabaisse
     The Mahogany Tree
     The Yankee Volunteers
     The Pen and the Album
     Mrs. Katherine's Lantern
     Lucy's Birthday
     The Cane-Bottom'd Chair
     Piscator and Piscatrix
     The Rose upon my Balcony
     Ronsard to his Mistress
     At the Church Gate
     The Age of Wisdom
     Sorrows of Werther
     A Doe in the City
     The Last of May
     "Ah, Bleak and Barren was the Moor"
     Song of the Violet
     Fairy Days
     Pocahontas
     From Pocahontas


     LOVE-SONGS MADE EASY:--

       What makes my Heart to Thrill and Glow?
       The Ghazul, or, Oriental Love-Song:--
         The Rocks
         The Merry Bard
         The Caique
       My Nora
       To Mary
       Serenade
       The Minaret Bells
       Come to the Greenwood Tree

     FIVE GERMAN DITTIES:--

       A Tragic Story
       The Chaplet
       The King on the Tower
       On a very Old Woman
       A Credo

     FOUR IMITATIONS OF BERANGER:--

       Le Roi d'Yvetot
         The King of Yvetot
         The King of Brentford
       Le Grenier
         The Garret
       Roger Bontemps
         Jolly Jack

     IMITATION OF HORACE:--

       To his Serving Boy
         Ad Ministram

     OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES:--

       The Knightly Guerdon
       The Almack's Adieu
       When the Gloom is on the Glen.
       The Red Flag
       Dear Jack
       Commanders of the Faithful
       When Moonlike ore the Hazure Seas
       King Canute
       Friar's Song
       Atra Cura
       Requiescat
       Lines upon my Sister's Portrait
       The Legend of St. Sophia of Kioff
       Titmarsh's Carmen Lilliense
       The Willow-Tree
       The Willow-Tree (another version)

     LYRA HIBERNICA:--

       The Pimlico Pavilion
       The Crystal Palace
       Molony's Lament
       Mr. Molony's Account of the Ball given to the Nepaulese
         Ambassador by the Peninsular and Oriental Company
       The Battle of Limerick
       Larry O'Toole
       The Rose of Flora
       The Last Irish Grievance


     THE BALLADS OF POLICEMAN X.:--

       The Wofle New Ballad of Jane Roney and Mary Brown
       The Three Christmas Waits
       Lines on a Late Hospicious Ewent
       The Ballad of Eliza Davis
       Damages, Two Hundred Pounds
       The Knight and the Lady
       Jacob Homnium's Hoss
       The Speculators
       A Woeful New Ballad of the Protestant Conspiracy to take the
         Pope's Life
       The Lamentable Ballad of the Foundling of Shoreditch
       The Organ Boy's Appeal

     Little Billee
     The End of the Play
     Vanitas Vanitatum




BALLADS.




THE CHRONICLE OF THE DRUM.

  PART I.


  At Paris, hard by the Maine barriers,
    Whoever will choose to repair,
  Midst a dozen of wooden-legged warriors
    May haply fall in with old Pierre.
  On the sunshiny bench of a tavern
    He sits and he prates of old wars,
  And moistens his pipe of tobacco
    With a drink that is named after Mars.

  The beer makes his tongue run the quicker,
    And as long as his tap never fails,
  Thus over his favorite liquor
    Old Peter will tell his old tales.
  Says he, "In my life's ninety summers
    Strange changes and chances I've seen,--
  So here's to all gentlemen drummers
    That ever have thump'd on a skin.

  "Brought up in the art military
    For four generations we are;
  My ancestors drumm'd for King Harry,
    The Huguenot lad of Navarre.
  And as each man in life has his station
    According as Fortune may fix,
  While Conde was waving the baton,
    My grandsire was trolling the sticks.

  "Ah! those were the days for commanders!
    What glories my grandfather won,
  Ere bigots, and lackeys, and panders
    The fortunes of France had undone!
  In Germany, Flanders, and Holland,--
    What foeman resisted us then?
  No; my grandsire was ever victorious,
    My grandsire and Monsieur Turenne.

  "He died: and our noble battalions
    The jade fickle Fortune forsook;
  And at Blenheim, in spite of our valiance,
    The victory lay with Malbrook.
  The news it was brought to King Louis;
    Corbleu! how his Majesty swore
  When he heard they had taken my grandsire:
    And twelve thousand gentlemen more.

  "At Namur, Ramillies, and Malplaquet
    Were we posted, on plain or in trench:
  Malbrook only need to attack it
    And away from him scamper'd we French.
  Cheer up! 'tis no use to be glum, boys,--
    'Tis written, since fighting begun,
  That sometimes we fight and we conquer,
    And sometimes we fight and we run.

  "To fight and to run was our fate:
    Our fortune and fame had departed.
  And so perish'd Louis the Great,--
    Old, lonely, and half broken-hearted.
  His coffin they pelted with mud,
    His body they tried to lay hands on;
  And so having buried King Louis
    They loyally served his great-grandson.

  "God save the beloved King Louis!
    (For so he was nicknamed by some,)
  And now came my father to do his
    King's orders and beat on the drum.
  My grandsire was dead, but his bones
    Must have shaken I'm certain for joy,
  To hear daddy drumming the English
    From the meadows of famed Fontenoy.

  "So well did he drum in that battle
    That the enemy show'd us their backs;
  Corbleu! it was pleasant to rattle
    The sticks and to follow old Saxe!
  We next had Soubise as a leader,
    And as luck hath its changes and fits,
  At Rossbach, in spite of dad's drumming,
    'Tis said we were beaten by Fritz.

  "And now daddy cross'd the Atlantic,
    To drum for Montcalm and his men;
  Morbleu! but it makes a man frantic
    To think we were beaten again!
  My daddy he cross'd the wide ocean,
    My mother brought me on her neck,
  And we came in the year fifty-seven
    To guard the good town of Quebec.

  "In the year fifty-nine came the Britons,--
    Full well I remember the day,--
  They knocked at our gates for admittance,
    Their vessels were moor'd in our bay.
  Says our general, 'Drive me yon redcoats
    Away to the sea whence they come!'
  So we marched against Wolfe and his bull-dogs,
    We marched at the sound of the drum.

  "I think I can see my poor mammy
    With me in her hand as she waits,
  And our regiment, slowly retreating,
    Pours back through the citadel gates.
  Dear mammy she looks in their faces,
    And asks if her husband is come?
  --He is lying all cold on the glacis,
    And will never more beat on the drum.

  "Come, drink, 'tis no use to be glum, boys,
    He died like a soldier in glory;
  Here's a glass to the health of all drum-boys,
    And now I'll commence my own story.
  Once more did we cross the salt ocean,
    We came in the year eighty-one;
  And the wrongs of my father the drummer
    Were avenged by the drummer his son.

  "In Chesapeake Bay we were landed.
    In vain strove the British to pass:
  Rochambeau our armies commanded,
   Our ships they were led by De Grasse.
  Morbleu! How I rattled the drumsticks
    The day we march'd into Yorktown;
  Ten thousand of beef-eating British
    Their weapons we caused to lay down.

  "Then homewards returning victorious,
    In peace to our country we came,
  And were thanked for our glorious actions
    By Louis Sixteenth of the name.
  What drummer on earth could be prouder
    Than I, while I drumm'd at Versailles
  To the lovely court ladies in powder,
    And lappets, and long satin-tails?

  "The Princes that day pass'd before us,
    Our countrymen's glory and hope;
  Monsieur, who was learned in Horace,
    D'Artois, who could dance the tightrope.
  One night we kept guard for the Queen
    At her Majesty's opera-box,
  While the King, that majestical monarch,
    Sat filing at home at his locks.

  "Yes, I drumm'd for the fair Antoinette,
    And so smiling she look'd and so tender,
  That our officers, privates, and drummers,
    All vow'd they would die to defend her.
  But she cared not for us honest fellows,
    Who fought and who bled in her wars,
  She sneer'd at our gallant Rochambeau,
    And turned Lafayette out of doors.

  "Ventrebleu! then I swore a great oath,
    No more to such tyrants to kneel.
  And so just to keep up my drumming,
    One day I drumm'd down the Bastille.
  Ho, landlord! a stoup of fresh wine.
    Come, comrades, a bumper we'll try,
  And drink to the year eighty-nine
    And the glorious fourth of July!

  "Then bravely our cannon it thunder'd
    As onwards our patriots bore.
  Our enemies were but a hundred,
    And we twenty thousand or more.
  They carried the news to King Louis.
    He heard it as calm as you please,
  And, like a majestical monarch,
    Kept filing his locks and his keys.

  "We show'd our republican courage,
    We storm'd and we broke the great gate in,
  And we murder'd the insolent governor
    For daring to keep us a-waiting.
  Lambesc and his squadrons stood by:
    They never stirr'd finger or thumb.
  The saucy aristocrats trembled
    As they heard the republican drum.

  "Hurrah! what a storm was a-brewing:
    The day of our vengeance was come!
  Through scenes of what carnage and ruin
    Did I beat on the patriot drum!
  Let's drink to the famed tenth of August:
    At midnight I beat the tattoo,
  And woke up the Pikemen of Paris
    To follow the bold Barbaroux.

  "With pikes, and with shouts, and with torches
    March'd onwards our dusty battalions,
  And we girt the tall castle of Louis,
    A million of tatterdemalions!
  We storm'd the fair gardens where tower'd
    The walls of his heritage splendid.
  Ah, shame on him, craven and coward,
    That had not the heart to defend it!

  "With the crown of his sires on his head,
    His nobles and knights by his side,
  At the foot of his ancestors' palace
    'Twere easy, methinks, to have died.
  But no: when we burst through his barriers,
    Mid heaps of the dying and dead,
  In vain through the chambers we sought him--
    He had turn'd like a craven and fled.

      .      .      .      .      .

  "You all know the Place de la Concorde?
    'Tis hard by the Tuilerie wall.
  Mid terraces, fountains, and statues,
    There rises an obelisk tall.
  There rises an obelisk tall,
    All garnish'd and gilded the base is:
  'Tis surely the gayest of all
    Our beautiful city's gay places.

  "Around it are gardens and flowers,
    And the Cities of France on their thrones,
  Each crown'd with his circlet of flowers
    Sits watching this biggest of stones!
  I love to go sit in the sun there,
    The flowers and fountains to see,
  And to think of the deeds that were done there
    In the glorious year ninety-three.

  "'Twas here stood the Altar of Freedom;
    And though neither marble nor gilding
  Was used in those days to adorn
    Our simple republican building,
  Corbleu! but the MERE GUILLOTINE
    Cared little for splendor or show,
  So you gave her an axe and a beam,
    And a plank and a basket or so.

  "Awful, and proud, and erect,
    Here sat our republican goddess.
  Each morning her table we deck'd
    With dainty aristocrats' bodies.
  The people each day flocked around
    As she sat at her meat and her wine:
  'Twas always the use of our nation
    To witness the sovereign dine.

  "Young virgins with fair golden tresses,
    Old silver-hair'd prelates and priests,
  Dukes, marquises, barons, princesses,
    Were splendidly served at her feasts.
  Ventrebleu! but we pamper'd our ogress
    With the best that our nation could bring,
  And dainty she grew in her progress,
    And called for the head of a King!

  "She called for the blood of our King,
    And straight from his prison we drew him;
  And to her with shouting we led him,
    And took him, and bound him, and slew him.
  'The monarchs of Europe against me
    Have plotted a godless alliance
  I'll fling them the head of King Louis,'
    She said, 'as my gage of defiance.'

  "I see him as now, for a moment,
    Away from his jailers he broke;
  And stood at the foot of the scaffold,
    And linger'd, and fain would have spoke.
  'Ho,drummer! quick! silence yon Capet,'
    Says Santerre, 'with a beat of your drum.'
  Lustily then did I tap it,
    And the son of Saint Louis was dumb."


  PART II.


  "The glorious days of September
    Saw many aristocrats fall;
  'Twas then that our pikes drunk the blood
    In the beautiful breast of Lamballe.
  Pardi, 'twas a beautiful lady!
    I seldom have looked on her like;
  And I drumm'd for a gallant procession,
    That marched with her head on a pike.

  "Let's show the pale head to the Queen,
    We said--she'll remember it well.
  She looked from the bars of her prison,
    And shriek'd as she saw it, and fell.
  We set up a shout at her screaming,
    We laugh'd at the fright she had shown
  At the sight of the head of her minion;
    How she'd tremble to part with her own.

  "We had taken the head of King Capet,
    We called for the blood of his wife;
  Undaunted she came to the scaffold,
    And bared her fair neck to the knife.
  As she felt the foul fingers that touch'd her,
    She shrunk, but she deigned not to speak:
  She look'd with a royal disdain,
    And died with a blush on her cheek!

  "'Twas thus that our country was saved;
    So told us the safety committee!
  But psha! I've the heart of a soldier,
    All gentleness, mercy, and pity.
  I loathed to assist at such deeds,
    And my drum beat its loudest of tunes
  As we offered to justice offended
    The blood of the bloody tribunes.

  "Away with such foul recollections!
    No more of the axe and the block;
  I saw the last fight of the sections,
    As they fell 'neath our guns at Saint Rock.
  Young BONAPARTE led us that day;
    When he sought the Italian frontier,
  I follow'd my gallant young captain,
    I follow'd him many a long year.

  "We came to an army in rags,
    Our general was but a boy
  When we first saw the Austrian flags
    Flaunt proud in the fields of Savoy.
  In the glorious year ninety-six,
    We march'd to the banks of the Po;
  I carried my drum and my sticks,
    And we laid the proud Austrian low.

  "In triumph we enter'd Milan,
    We seized on the Mantuan keys;
  The troops of the Emperor ran,
    And the Pope he tell down on his knees.--
  Pierre's comrades here call'd a fresh bottle,
    And clubbing together their wealth,
  They drank to the Army of Italy,
    And General Bonaparte's health."

  The drummer now bared his old breast,
    And show'd us a plenty of scars,
  Rude presents that Fortune had made him,
    In fifty victorious wars.
  "This came when I follow'd bold Kleber--
    'Twas shot by a Mameluke gun;
  And this from an Austrian sabre,
    When the field of Marengo was won.

  "My forehead has many deep furrows,
    But this is the deepest of all:
  A Brunswicker made it at Jena,
    Beside the fair river of Saal.
  This cross, 'twas the Emperor gave it;
    (God bless him!) it covers a blow;
  I had it at Austerlitz fight,
    As I beat on my drum in the snow.

  "'Twas thus that we conquer'd and fought;
    But wherefore continue the story?
  There's never a