This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com.
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 Caïque 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 BÉRANGER:--
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 Condé was waving the baton, My grandsire was trolling the sticks.
