FullReads

One market morning, in my usual rambles,
Passing along Whitechapel’s ancient shambles,
Where meat was hung in many a joint and quarter,
I had to halt awhile, like other folks,
To let a killing butcher coax
A score of lambs and fatted sheep to slaughter.
A sturdy man he looke’d to fell an ox,
Bull-fronted, ruddy, with a formal streak
Of well-greased hair down either cheek,
As if he dee-dash-dee’d some other flocks
Beside those woolly-headed stubborn blocks
That stood before him, in vexatious huddle–
Poor little lambs, with bleating wethers group’d,
While, now and then, a thirsty creature stoop’d
And meekly snuff’d, but did not taste the puddle.

Fierce bark’d the dog, and many a blow was dealt,
That loin, and chump, and scrag and saddle felt,
Yet still, that fatal step they all declined it,–
And shunn’d the tainted door as if they smelt
Onions, mint sauce, and lemon juice behind it.
At last there came a pause of brutal force,
The cur was silent, for his jaws were full
Of tangled locks of tarry wool,
The man had whoop’d and holloed till dead hoarse.
The time was ripe for mild expostulation,
And thus it stammer’d from a stander-by–
“Zounds!–my good fellow,–it quite makes me–why,
It really–my dear fellow–do just try Conciliation!”

Stringing his nerves like flint,
The sturdy butcher seized upon the hint,–
At least he seized upon the foremost wether,–
And hugg’d and lugg’d and tugg’d him neck and crop
Just nolens volens thro’ the open shop–
If tails come off he didn’t care a feather,–
Then walking to the door and smiling grim,
He rubb’d his forehead and his sleeve together–
“There!–I have conciliated him!”

Again–good-humoredly to end our quarrel–
(Good humor should prevail!)
I’ll fit you with a tale,
Whereto is tied a moral.

Once on a time a certain English lass
Was seized with symptoms of such deep decline,
Cough, hectic flushes, ev’ry evil sign,
That, as their wont is at such desperate pass,
The Doctors gave her over–to an ass.

Accordingly, the grisly Shade to bilk,
Each morn the patient quaff’d a frothy bowl
Of asinine new milk,
Robbing a shaggy suckling of a foal
Which got proportionably spare and skinny–
Meanwhile the neighbors cried “Poor Mary Ann!
She can’t get over it! she never can!”
When lo! to prove each prophet was a ninny
The one that died was the poor wet-nurse Jenny.

To aggravate the case,
There were but two grown donkeys in the place;
And most unluckily for Eve’s sick daughter,
The other long ear’d creature was a male,
Who never in his life had given a pail
Of milk, or even chalk and water.
No matter: at the usual hour of eight
Down trots a donkey to the wicket-gate,
With Mister Simon Gubbins on his back,–
“Your sarvant, Miss”,–a worry spring-like day,–
Bad time for hasses tho’! good lack! good lack!
Jenny be dead, Miss,–but I’ve brought ye Jack,
He doesn’t give no milk–but he can bray.

So runs the story,
And, in vain self-glory,
Some Saints would sneer at Gubbins for his blindness–
But what the better are their pious saws
To ailing souls, than dry hee-haws,
Without the milk of human kindness?