Historical & Legendary Ballads & Songs By Walter Thornbury. Illustrated by J. Whistler, F. Walker, John Tenniel, J. D. Watson, W. Small, F. Sandys, G. J. Pinwell, T. Morten, M. J. Lawless, and many others |
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The Alderman's Funeral.
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 | Historical & Legendary Ballads & Songs |  |
The Alderman's Funeral.
(MEPHISTOPHILUS LOQUITUR.)
Bring out the plumes that honour the dead,Mocking the mourner's bended head,
From the top of the hearse that holds the dead
And tell the mutes and all the grooms
To mind and take care how they tread,
And be sure the coachman's eyes are red.
Don't splash the ends of the velvet pall,
Nor let the dropping black fringe fall,
Nor the mud-drops spatter you one and all.
I know 't is hard to strain a grief
On a cold and biting Autumn day,
When the road is heavy with mud and clay,
And the churchyard distant a terrible way,
With an Alderman heavy some seventeen stone,
A heap of fat,—a swollen tun.
I find these supporters of Church and State
Require support to the churchyard gate.
As the soil was never so fit to weed,
Nettles and other poisonous seed,
Will be the mound over Alderman Vaughan,
Who laughed both God man and to scorn,
And yet, having plenty of money to lend
At cent. per cent., made a holy end,
Surrounded by many a weeping friend,
And leaving an inconsolable wife,
And four inconsolable orphans too,
Who already are leading a cat and dog life,
And squabbling over the legacies due.
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That every virtue is sold for pay!
Men hire mourners—for half that die
Would get no tears unless they bought
The drops that fall from a hireling's eye.
And these bought tears are just as salt
As those of friends; and they look as real,
Till we shut the door of No. II. vault,
And pull off the cloaks and all the ideal,
And pass the pot to moisten our clay,
Quite run dry with the grief of the day.
And the brittle pipe teaches us all how frail
Man's tenure is—though the moral's stale.
How the plumes of the pompous hearse
Bend and mock, as we slowly pace
Through the crowd to the cheapest burial-place,
Where the sexton is itching to finger his fees
All the while he is on his knees;
And the parson thinks, while he looks at the mould,
That his Christmas dinner is getting cold;
And the parish boys think it jolly fun,
And wish that every day “there was one;”
And the urchin that runs for the key of the vault
Throws a comical somersault,
And thinks it a lark to see the graves
Heaving up like the Dead Sea's waves.
There's always a crowd for men's delight
To see a corpse put out of sight,
Snugly feeling themselves all right.
It's quite a show: the old hag crows,
And puts her spectacles on her nose.
“We pay at the fairs for the puppet-shows,
But this fine sight comes right to our doors,
For no admittance fee is ours.”
“Come on,” the crowd of the street folk roars:
The funeral pomp quite rivals Punch,
And the juggler in his tinsel tights;
And the cripple, giving his crust a crunch,
Hobble to see such solemn sights.
I wonder that the mutes don't laugh
As they stand at the dark silent door,
When they hear within how the live men quaff,
And fretfully over the torn will pore,
And curse the dead, and spit on the floor.
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Make pride and sorrow count the cost,
Calculate the coming bill,
And look in the dead man's brimming till
To see what tears they may dare to spill.
Without this cost we should be in extremes,—
Our gutters would run with tears in streams;
Our very carpets would be of crape,
The poodle himself would be dyed black,
And we should discard the red toast-rack.
Now the plumes waver and toss about
Like the proud beauty at last night's rout—
I think they are trying the dead to flout,
Who, pale and calm, not heeding expense,
Not caring how many piles of pence
The heir who waited so patiently,
Came so many a time to tea,
Spends to show his grief and woe,
Trying to keep the charges low;
How he kissed the dog that bit his calf—
At all bad jokes he strained a laugh;
And, in fact, for three and twenty years
Was a slave to the mingled hopes and fears.
The dead man cares not now for waste,—
But then the world is rather tight-laced,
And expects a pious heir to spend
A good round sum on a dying friend.
He spends it, grudging it all the time,
And quarrelling at the said long bill,
And swearing his income is really nil!
And “weren't the plumes a trifle dear?
And couldn't they dock the sum for beer?”
Then, knowing the whole wide world will see
The one result of his piety,—
By the world I don't mean the round world fair,
But about one-half of Berkeley Square,—
Pays “the bill” with a whispered oath,
And tries to look as if nothing loth.
Combined with gilded scrolls and show
Is the epitaph of the broad tombstone;
Showing “earth has one angel less,
And heaven one more.” His loneliness
He represents with sigh and moan:—
“A tender husband, a father fond,
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That is to say, he was ready to lend
At cent. per cent., and never wronged
Those whom he found it better paid
To treat with justice in his trade.
A tender husband (you well may start—
His first wife died of a broken heart!)
Oh! half the lies of this lying race
Are written on stone in the burying-place;
And the house of God is paved and lined
With monuments of human shame;
Proof of the baseness of men's mind,
For tears are water—sighs are wind.
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