Читать книгу Modern Street Ballads - John Ashton - Страница 8

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Good folks I will try at a song,

So I hope you will make no wry faces,

Believe me, I’ll not keep you long,

With my budget of public places:

To what I’m about to rehearse,

If you’ll but please to attend,

You will learn from my play-bill in verse,

Where to go, if you’ve money to spend.

Covent Garden Garden of O.P.[4] renown, The contest you all may remember; Old Drury that was burnt down, And Bartlemy Fair in September. With the Tower of London so grand, Where a huge pocket-pistol you see, And Salmon’s Wax Work in the Strand, With the Sans Pareil after your tea.

There’s the Opera House at the West,

A Chalk Farm and a famous Jew’s Harp,

Where, pay well, you may feed on the best,

Then walk in the Regency Park.

A Lord’s Cricket Ground that is new,

With a Tottenham Playhouse so gay,

Hyde Park and the Serpentine too,

For Men Milliners on a Sunday.

There’s Wigley’s promenade too, I ween,

And Bond Street parade in addition,

With Kensington Gardens when clean,

And the Somerset House Exhibition.

There’s the Wells, and Grimaldi so rum, Sirs,

With Westminster Abbey to range,

A walk in the Temple for Lawyers,

And “All alive in Exeter ’Change.”

The British Museum’s a treat,

Vauxhall with its fireworks pretty,

Where belles and their sparks you will meet,

And “the Royalty” too, in the City.

A Surrey Theatre there’s too, Sirs,

Where the bow-wow performers so grand,

Played with eclat, and where you may view,

The fine bridge ’twixt Bankside and the Strand.

A forum there is for debate,

A Fives Court for milling in fun, Sirs,

A Parliament House for the great,

With a cock-pit for cruelty’s sport, Sirs,

With balls, concerts, and masquerades,

And spouting rooms, too, half a score,

With prime song-clubs in the “Shades,”

Knock ’em down with a Bravo! Encore!

Gas lights too flare in your eyes,

Indian Jugglers deceive in Pall Mall,

Guildhall for a lottery prize,

Astley’s horses, too, still bear the bell.

The Monument, too, a tall post,

And also, without any raillery,

The Londoners’ principal boast,

St. Paul’s and its Whispering Gallery.