Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold By "F. Harald Williams"[i.e. F. W. O. Ward]. First Edition |
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“OLE GRAN.” |
 | Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold |  |
“OLE GRAN.”
This is funny “Ole Gran,'
A quaint Whitechapel figure
Composed on a plan
Of old rags and all rigour;
And mouldy with weather and lichened bytime
To a singular shape,
And half woman, half ape,
With suspicions of moss and a coating of grime;
She is threadbare and thrifty,
And numbers twice fifty
Long years and can still pick her oakum and thieve—
So they say, and I think I can almost believe.
A quaint Whitechapel figure
Composed on a plan
Of old rags and all rigour;
And mouldy with weather and lichened bytime
To a singular shape,
And half woman, half ape,
With suspicions of moss and a coating of grime;
She is threadbare and thrifty,
And numbers twice fifty
Long years and can still pick her oakum and thieve—
So they say, and I think I can almost believe.
Here's a health to “Ole Gran,”
And a fig for aspersions!
She gets what she can,
And will have her diversions.
If she holds the meum and teum are one,
And the busy who toil
Are preserved for her spoil,
She does only what titled defrauders have done;
And society brought her
To this, and mistaught her—
It pushed her along this deplorable way;
And yet now we would grumble, at what we must pay.
And a fig for aspersions!
She gets what she can,
And will have her diversions.
If she holds the meum and teum are one,
And the busy who toil
Are preserved for her spoil,
She does only what titled defrauders have done;
And society brought her
To this, and mistaught her—
It pushed her along this deplorable way;
And yet now we would grumble, at what we must pay.
527
I wont bother “Ole Gran”
With proprieties' wishes,
If into her pan
She pops my loaves and fishes;
She is welcome to take of my margin and live
On my leavings and pence,
And to break through the fence
Of my sound legal rights—and I freely forgive;
Her dim doddering paces
And crusty grimaces,
Appeal to my love more than satin and silk,
And if I enjoy cream, she may have the skim milk.
With proprieties' wishes,
If into her pan
She pops my loaves and fishes;
She is welcome to take of my margin and live
On my leavings and pence,
And to break through the fence
Of my sound legal rights—and I freely forgive;
Her dim doddering paces
And crusty grimaces,
Appeal to my love more than satin and silk,
And if I enjoy cream, she may have the skim milk.
Others threaten “Ole Gran”
With policemen and such,
And your drawing-room man
Would recoil from her touch;
Prigs allege she's unpleasant to nose and to eye;
And is evil in look,
Yet she fills up a nook
In my heart, and the bearings of earth and the sky;
As the blight on a meadow,
She fits in the shadow
Of life, and has somewhere her own proper place,
Which is part of one whole, and as needful as grace.
With policemen and such,
And your drawing-room man
Would recoil from her touch;
Prigs allege she's unpleasant to nose and to eye;
And is evil in look,
Yet she fills up a nook
In my heart, and the bearings of earth and the sky;
As the blight on a meadow,
She fits in the shadow
Of life, and has somewhere her own proper place,
Which is part of one whole, and as needful as grace.
| Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold | |