Suppose you screeve, or go cheap-jack? [1] Or fake the broads? or fig a nag? Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack? Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag? Suppose you duff? or nose and lag? Or get the straight, and land your pot? How do you melt the multy swag? Booze and the blowens cop the lot. II Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack; Or moskeneer, or flash the drag; Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack; Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag; Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag; Rattle the tats, or mark the spot You cannot bank a single stag: Booze and the blowens cop the lot. III Suppose you try a different tack, And on the square you flash your flag? At penny-a-lining make your whack, Or with the mummers mug and gag? For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag At any graft, no matter what! Your merry goblins soon stravag: Booze and the blowens cop the lor. _The Moral._ It's up-the-spout and Charley-Wag With wipes and tickers and what not! Until the squeezer nips your scrag, Booze and the blowens cop the lot. [1: See Notes for translation] CULTURE IN THE SLUMS [1887] [By WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY: "Inscribed to an intense poet"]. I. _Rondeau._ I "O crikey, Bill!" she ses to me, she ses. "Look sharp," ses she, "with them there sossiges. Yea! sharp with them there bags of mysteree! [1] For lo!" she ses, "for lo! old pal," ses she, [2] "I'm blooming peckish, neither more nor less." [3] II Was it not prime--I leave you all to guess How prime! to have a jude in love's distress [4] Come spooning round, and murmuring balmilee, [5] "O crikey, Bill!" III For in such rorty wise doth Love express [6] His blooming views, and asks for your address, And makes it right, and does the gay and free. I kissed her--I did so! And her and me Was pals. And if that ain't good business. O crikey, Bill! II. _Villanelle_. I Now ain't they utterly too--too? [7] (She ses, my Missus mine, ses she), Them flymy little bits of Blue. [8] II Joe, just you kool 'em--nice and skew [9] Upon our old meogginee, Now ain't they utterly too-too? III They're better than a pot'n a screw, They're equal to a Sunday spree, Them flymy little bits of Blue! IV Suppose I put 'em up the flue, [10] And booze the profits, Joe? Not me. [11] Now ain't they utterly too-too ? V I do the 'Igh Art fake, I do. Joe, I'm consummate; and I _see_ Them flymy little bits of Blue. VI Which, Joe, is why I ses to you-- Æsthetic-like, and limp, and free-- Now ain't they utterly too-too, Them flymy little bits of Blue? III. _Ballade_. I I often does a quiet read At Booty Shelley's poetry; [12] I thinks that Swinburne at a screed Is really almost too-too fly; At Signor Vagna's harmony [13] I likes a merry little flutter; I've had at Pater many a shy; In fact, my form's the Bloomin' Utter. II