My name for truth is gone, I fear, But, monstrous as it may appear, They let their drawing-room one day To an eligible person in the cotton-broking way. Whenever THOMSON GREEN fell sick His wife called in a doctor, quick, From whom some words like these would come— _Fiat mist. sumendum haustus_, in a _cochleyareum_. For thirty years this curious pair Hung out in Canonbury Square, And somehow, wonderful to say, They loved each other dearly in a quiet sort of way. Well, THOMSON GREEN fell ill and died; For just a year his widow cried, And then her heart she gave away To the eligible lodger in the cotton-broking way. Oh, list to this incredible tale Of THOMSON GREEN and HARRIET HALE, Its truth in one remark you’ll sum— “Twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twum!” BOB POLTER BOB POLTER was a navvy, and His hands were coarse, and dirty too, His homely face was rough and tanned, His time of life was thirty-two. He lived among a working clan (A wife he hadn’t got at all), A decent, steady, sober man— No saint, however—not at all. He smoked, but in a modest way, Because he thought he needed it; He drank a pot of beer a day, And sometimes he exceeded it. At times he’d pass with other men A loud convivial night or two, With, very likely, now and then, On Saturdays, a fight or two. But still he was a sober soul, A labour-never-shirking man, Who paid his way—upon the whole A decent English working man. One day, when at the Nelson’s Head (For which he may be blamed of you), A holy man appeared, and said, “Oh, ROBERT, I’m ashamed of you.” He laid his hand on ROBERT’S beer Before he could drink up any, And on the floor, with sigh and tear, He poured the pot of “thruppenny.” “Oh, ROBERT, at this very bar A truth you’ll be discovering, A good and evil genius are Around your noddle hovering. “They both are here to bid you shun The other one’s society, For Total Abstinence is one, The other, Inebriety.” He waved his hand—a vapour came— A wizard POLTER reckoned him; A bogy rose and called his name, And with his finger beckoned him. The monster’s salient points to sum,— His heavy breath was portery: His glowing nose suggested rum: His eyes were gin-and-_wor_tery. His dress was torn—for dregs of ale And slops of gin had rusted it; His pimpled face was wan and pale, Where filth had not encrusted it. “Come, POLTER,” said the fiend, “begin, And keep the bowl a-flowing on— A working man needs pints of gin To keep his clockwork going on.” BOB shuddered: “Ah, you’ve made a miss If you take me for one of you: You filthy beast, get out of this— BOB POLTER don’t wan’t none of you.”