Lost Bab ballads :: :: University of Virginia Library

If my anticipation's correct
When I come to swoop down on my quarry,
That he treated my love with neglect
I think he'll be certainly sorry!
I'll hide his dress-suits, and I'll put little brutes like black-
beetles and newts in the toes of his boots;
When fatigued and half dead he shall sup on dry bread, and
lay down his poor head on an apple-pie bed;
Then to add to his woes, all his socks and his hose shall be
rubbish that goes at the heels and the toes;
His meat shall be tough, and he shan't have enough, and
his pudding or puff shall be flavoured with snuff;
His claret, I think, in acidity pink will resemble red ink;
and the coffee he'll drink,
As to flavour and smell you'll alone parallel in the stuff that
they sell in a British hotel!
He shall live, for his guilt,
In a house jerry-built;
All the chimneys shall smoke
Till he's ready to choke;
And the plaster shall fall
Both from ceiling and wall;
The roof it shall leak, and the pipes shall congeal,
The doors they shall warp (being made of new deal),

And the stucco shall mildew and blister and peel,
And the chimney-pots rock to and fro—so.
By his lease he'll be bound
To make everything sound;
So he'll put up oak doors,
And lay down polished floors,
Admiration excite
With stained glass and lead light,
Red tiles and rough cast, matting dado and frieze
(He'll have caught the prevailing artistic disease,
Pompeian—Renaissance—Queen Anne—Japanese,
And his taste is exceedingly so-so).
Well, the rabble and rout
Of bricklayers clear out;
He has got rid of them,
And his house is a gem,
All his troubles are past,
And he's happy at last—
When he feels an unpleasant abdominal pain,
With a taste in his mouth, and a throb in his brain:
Sewer-gas—nothing more—something wrong with the drain!
It is easily stopped—so the builders explain.
Very likely these gentry are right in the main,
But the antidote proves to be worse than the bane,
For it brings all the bricklaying plagues in its train:
The walls must come down, and that lets in the rain—
The clean Morris paper is covered with stain—
The new polished oak has brick-dust in its grain;
All the floors must come up, and remonstrance is vain
And the wretched householder is driven insane,
For he's got to do everything over again!