Читать книгу Jack The Giant Killer - Leigh Percival - Страница 4

          Where good Saint Michael's craggy mount

          Rose Venus-like from out the sea,

          A giant dwelt; a mighty- Count

          In his own view, forsooth, was he;

          And not unlike one, verily,

          (A foreign Count, like those we meet

          In Leicester Square, or Regent Street),

          I mean with respect to his style of hair,

          Mustachios, and beard, and ferocious air, —

          His figure was quite another affair.

         This odd-looking "bird"

         Was a Richard the Third,

         Four times taller and five as wide;

         Or a clumsy Punch,

         With his cudgel and hunch,

              Into a monster magnified!

     In quest of prey across the sea

     He'd wade, with ponderous club;

              For not the slightest "bones" made he

              Of "boning" people's "grub."

     There was screaming and crying "Oh dear!" and "Oh law

     When the terrified maids the monster saw;

                 As he stalked – tramp! tramp!

                 Stamp! stamp! stamp! stamp!

         Coming on like the statue in "Don Giovanni."

                 "Oh my!" they would cry,

                  "Here he comes; let us fly!

         Did you ever behold such a horrid old brawny? —

                 A – h!" and off they would run

                 Like "blazes," or "fun,"

         Followed, pell-mell, by man and master;

                 While the grisly old fellow

                 Would after them bellow,

         To make them scamper away the faster.

          When this mountain bugaboo

          Had filled his belly, what would he do?

          He'd shoulder his club with an ox or two,

          Stick pigs and sheep in his belt a few, —

     There were two or three in it, and two or three under

     (I hope ye have all the "organ of wonder");

     Then back again to his mountain cave

     He would stump o'er the dry land and stride through the wave.

                     What was to be done?

                     For this was no fun;

                 And it must be clear to every one,

          The new Tariff itself would assuredly not

          Have supplied much longer the monstrous pot

                 Of this beef-eating, bull-headed, "son-of-a-gun."

     Upon a night as dark as pitch

     A light was dancing on the sea; —

     Marked it the track of the Water Witch?

     Could it a Jack-a-lantern be?

     A lantern it was, and borne by Jack;

     A spade and a pickaxe he had at his back;

     In his belt a good cow-horn;

     He was up to some game you may safely be sworn.

     Saint Michael's Mount he quickly gained,

     And there the livelong night remained.

                What he did

                The darkness hid;

     Nor needeth it that I should say:

     Nor would you have seen,

     If there you had been

     Looking on at the break of day.

     Morning dawned on the ocean blue;

     Shrieked the gull and the wild sea-mew;

     The donkey brayed, and the grey cock crew;

     Jack put to his mouth his good cow-horn,

     And a blast therewith did blow.

     The Giant heard the note of scorn,

     And woke and cried "Hallo!"

     He popped out his head with his night-cap on,

     To look who his friend might be,

     And eke his spectacles did don,

     That he mote the better see.

     "I'll broil thee for breakfast," he roared amain,

     "For breaking my repose."

     "Yaa!" valiant Jack returned again,

     With his fingers at his nose.

     Forward the monster tramps apace,

     Like to an elephant running a race;

     Like a walking-stick he handles his mace.

     Away, too venturous wight, decamp!

     In two more strides your skull he smashes; —

     One! Gracious goodness! what a stamp!

     Two! Ha! the plain beneath him crashes:

     Down he goes, full fathoms three.

     "How feel ye now," cried Jack, "old chap?

     It is plain, I wot, to see

     You 're by no means up to trap."

     The Giant answered with such a roar,

     It was like the Atlantic at war with its shore;

     A thousand times worse than the hullaballoo

     Of carnivora, fed,

     Ere going to bed,

     At the Regent's Park, or the Surrey "Zoo."

     "So ho! Sir Giant," said Jack, with a bow,

     "Of breakfast art thou fain?

     For a tit-bit wilt thou broil me now,

     An' I let thee out again? "

     Gnashing his teeth, and rolling his eyes,

     The furious lubber strives to rise.

     "Don't you wish you may get it?" our hero cries

       And he drives the pickaxe into his skull:

       Giving him thus a belly-full,

                        If the expression is n't a bull.

                    Old Cormoran dead,

                       Jack cut off his head,

       And hired a boat to transport it home.

                    On the "bumps" of the brute,

       At the Institute,

       A lecture was read by a Mr. Combe.

         Their Worships, the Justices of the Peace,

         Called the death of the monster a "happy release:"

         Sent for the champion who had drubbed him,

         And "Jack the Giant Killer" dubbed him;

         And they gave him a sword, and a baldric, whereon

         For all who could read them, these versicles shone: —

            'THIS IS YE VALYANT CORNISHE MAN

            WHO SLEWE YE GIANT CORMORAN"