Lost Bab ballads :: :: University of Virginia Library

Draper's clerk in a humble way,
Margate-bound, on a Seventh-day;
Gent in figured dicky and frill
Smoking pipes on Richmond Hill;
Coster dressed for an Epping bout;
Servant-gal with a Sunday out;
Quail, quail, quail, quail!
Here is the Reverend Barney Payle,
Good in a dismal way!
Gurgle and groan
Never were known
Ever to fail
Barnaby Payle,
Barnaby Payle, B.A.

Rumble, blunder, stumble, thunder,
Wrangle, tangle, jingle-jangle,
Fluttery stuttery, bog, fog,
Missing his tack,
Changing his track,
Losing his threads,
Mixing his “heads,”
Flash! Dash! Splash! Crash!
Slowly, fastly, grimly, ghastly
Firstly, secondly, thirdly, lastly
Lastly first,
Firstly last,
Sinners curst,
Hope all past.
Down! down! down! down!
Sob—sigh—gulp—frown.
Boil! boil! boil! boil!
Boiling lead and blazing oil.
Groans—squirms—
Bones—worms—
Contradiction full, in terms,
(Half-past one—
Almost done).
Wake! wake! wake! wake!
Deuce to take!
All at stake
Wake! wake! wake! wake!
Suddenly—grandly devotional—
Thrilling—emphatic—emotional—
Various kinds
Of baby minds
Trained on Barnaby Payle-ian rules,
At Blabworth-Talkington Infant Schools.
Fill, oh, fill the silver plate—

Donors dwindling down of late—
Hundreds wanted—thousands—more—
Give, oh, give at the church's door!

This was the sermon one fine day,
Preached by Barnaby Payle, B.A.,
The first he'd ever had to speak,
For Payle was only “frocked” last week.

In an otherwise empty pew,
Sat a respectable Jew,
His starting eyeballs glistened—
Despite dissent, with best attent
That Hebrew person listened.
And Payle, B.A., remarked the way
In which the Jew drank in, that day,
The burning things he chose to say,
And hoped to see him christened.

The sermon at an end
His Israelitish friend,
Heart-smitten to the core
Sought out the vestry door.
“Oh, admirable Payle,
I've heard my people rail
Against your priests, and say that they can only smirk or roar,
But I can only say
That, thanks to you, to-day
I've learnt a better lesson than I ever learnt before.

“I've learnt why clerks in a humble way
Sail abroad on their Seventh Day;

I've learnt why costermongers will
Spend that day on the Epping-hill;
I've learnt the meaning of pious cant,
Baldness, ignorance, dulness, rant—
A wonderful study for thoughtful minds
At Blabworth-Talkington Church one finds!”