Читать книгу Jack The Giant Killer - Leigh Percival - Страница 3

               Of a right noble race was Jack,

               For kith and kin he did not lack,

                    Whom tuneful bards have puffed;

               The Seven bold Champions ranked among

               That highly celebrated throng,

                    And Riquet with the Tuft.

          Jack of the Beanstalk, too, was one;

          And Beauty's Beast; and Valour's son,

              Sir Amadis de Gaul:

          But if I had a thousand tongues,

          A throat of brass, and iron lungs,

              I could not sing them all.

     His sire was a farmer hearty and free;

     He dwelt where the Land's End frowns on the sea,

     And the sea at the Land's End roars again,

     Tit for tat, land and main.

     He was a worthy wight, and so

     He brought up his son in the way he should go;

     He sought not – not he! – to make him a "muff;"

     He never taught him a parcel of stuff;

     He bothered him not with trees and plants,

     Nor told him to study the manners of ants.

     He himself had never been

     Bored with the Saturday Magazine;

     The world might be flat, or round, or square,

     He knew not, and he did not care;

     Nor wished that a boy of his should be

     A Cornish "Infant Prodigy."

     But he stored his mind with learning stable,

     The deeds of the Knights of the famed Round Table;

     Legends and stories, chants and lays,

     Of witches and warlocks, goblins and fays;

             How champions of might

             Defended the right,

     Freed the captive, and succoured the damsel distrest

              Till Jack would exclaim —

     "If I don't do the same,

     An' I live to become a man, —I'm blest!"

     Jack lightly recked of sport or play

              Wherein young gentlemen delight,

     But he would wrestle any day,

     Box, or at backsword fight.

     He was a lad of special "pluck,"

     And strength beyond his years,

          Or science, gave him aye the luck

          To drub his young compeers.

     His task assigned, like Giles or Hodge,

     The woolly flocks to tend,

          His wits to warlike fray or "dodge"

          Wool-gathering oft would wend.

     And then he'd wink his sparkling eye,

     And nod his head right knowingly,

         And sometimes "Won't I just!" would cry,

         Or "At him, Bill, again!"

          Now this behaviour did evince

          A longing for a foe to mince;

          An instinct fitter for a Prince

          Than for a shepherd swain.