These are the ballads, tender and meek,
Sung by a bard with his tongue in his cheek.
Sung by a poet, well a day!
Who doesn’t believe a word of his lay.
Rattleton Traplegh was pretty and pink;
Rattleton Traplegh was (only think!)
Sadly addicted to flirting with
Mrs. Saphira Wallabie Smith.
List to a legend wholly untrue!
Mrs. Saphira’s men wore blue
Coats with a chevron of crimson-lake,
Just where one feels a stomach-ache.
(They pulled her rickshaw in storm or shine
When she went round J—ko or went to dine.)
Was it an accident? Was it a game?
Mrs. Y. Canterby’s men wore the same!
Mrs. Y. Canterby wasn’t a belle—
Mrs. Y. Canterby’s age was—well
More than thirty! and Mrs. Y.C.
Was “down” like a vulture on Rattleton T.
(Needless to state what you all must guess,—
Mrs. Y. Canterby loathed Mrs. S.)
List to a legend wholly untrue!
The clock in the steeple was striking two;
The dance was ended, and, filled with hope,
Rattleton rattled down B—e slope.
Blue were the coats by the rickshaw shaft;
Red were the chevrons fore and aft.
Closed was the hood; but, nevertheless,
Under the hood sat Saphira S.
So thought Traplegh. Her voice was gruff.
He never noticed, but whispered stuff
To the hooded rickshaw he ‘hadn’t orter.’
(Rattleton’s drink was never water.)
Rattleton Traplegh’s tongue was stilled;
Rattleton Traplegh’s blood was chilled
(Fill the hiatus yourself. Not I.)
When the lamplight showed Mrs. Canterby.
Was there a ‘ruction’? Who can say?
Rattleton Traplegh bolted away
To a place in the plains (which are rather warm)
Left Mrs. Smith in the thick of the storm.
Now for the moral. Never walk
By night with a rickshaw, and never talk
In a way you shouldn’t. At least, take care
To look in the rickshaw and see who’s there.