Lost Bab ballads :: :: University of Virginia Library

In underbred society
(Which I was nurtured in)
No species of impiety
Is reckoned such a sin—
No shocking inhumanity
So lowly to degrade
(Alas, oh, human vanity!)
As being badly made.

Men, absolute iniquity
With bandiness assess,
And physical obliquity
With moral twistiness.
There, natural deformity
Or curvature of bone
Is viewed as an enormity
No penance can atone.

No atom of mortality
Bore worthier repute,
For vigorous morality
Than Mr. Baker Coote.
Conspicuous for charity
And active virtue, too—

In truth a moral rarity—
A worthy man, and true.

But, ah, my friends, unluckily
His form was strongly warped!
He bore his sorrow pluckily
And seldom on it harped.
At parties, girls, perchance, with him
Would nothing have to do—
No maiden cared to dance with him,
Much less, of course, to woo.

Too short his legs were thought to be;
His little back, no doubt,
Was higher than it ought to be;
His arms, at times, slipped out.
One eye adored astronomy
And bright celestial zones,
The other (strange economy!)
Inspected paving stones.

Misshapen though amazingly
With inconvenient twirl,
He dared to mention praisingly
The bowyer Wilson's girl.
Grotesque as a barbarian
(Poor Baker Coote, I mean)
He dared to love fair Marian,
The Beauty of Wood-Green.

Although in form inferior
He had affections fine—
A sensitive interior
Like yours, dear friend, or mine.

He dared to love the Beautiful,
The Graceful, and the True,
The Sensible, the Dutiful,
The Kind, and Well-to-do.

But she (poor Coote in talking with,
She banished all his claims)
Preferred to go out walking with
A well-made person—James.
Poor Coote determined pluckily
To stab that well-made man,
But incidents unluckily
Occurred to baulk his plan.

So Coote, with strange temerity
Would gaze on her all day,
Till James, with much asperity,
Would bid him go away.
“Don't shorten my felicity,”
Said Baker in a blaze,
“The cat of domesticity
On Royalty may gaze.

“Look on yon sky's concavity,
The sun, celestial ball,
We, spite of our depravity,
May love and worship all!
The moon shines brightly—beamingly—
And though I'm crooked, it's true,
Yet I may court her, seemingly,
Till everything is blue!”

James, though adored by Marian,
Was pitiably dense,

A common-place vulgarian
With no poetic sense.
“Now, Baker, go your ways, my boy,
You poor, misshapen loon—
Spend, if you like, your days, my boy,
In crying for the moon.

“Perhaps she is—you say she is—
Unangered at your smiles,
But think how far away she is—
Three hundred thousand miles!
Were you a gay Lunarian
You might, I'm sure, have stared
All day at Mistress Marian
For anything I cared!”

No man of true nobility
Could stand such taunts and names,
Or suffer with tranquillity
The gibes of well-made James.
He used his blade unskilfully—
With blunderbuss instead,
He aimed at Jamie, wilfully,
And shot that springald dead!

You would have fancied, tearfully,
He would not sigh in vain,
Who braves the gallows cheerfully
His only love to gain.
Don't let such wild insanity
Upon your thoughts intrude,
You little know the vanity
Of female gratitude!