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The Ballad of Salvation Bill

’Twas in the bleary middle of the hard-boiled Arctic night,

I was lonesome as a loon, so if you can,

Imagine my emotions of amazement and delight

When I bumped into that Missionary Man.

He was lying lost and dying in the moon’s unholy leer,

And frozen from his toes to fingertips;

The famished wolf pack ringed him; but he didn’t seem to fear,

As he pressed his ice-bound Bible to his lips.

’Twas the limit of my trapline, with the cabin miles away,

And every step was like a stab of pain;

But I packed him like a baby, and I nursed him night and day,

Till I got him back to health and strength again.

So there we were, benighted in the shadow of the Pole,

And he might have proved a priceless little pard,

If he hadn’t got to worrying about my blessed soul,

And a-quotin’ me his Bible by the yard.

Now there was I, a husky guy, whose god was Nicotine.

With a “coffin nail” a fixture in my mug;

I rolled them in the pages of a pulpwood magazine,

And hacked them with my jackknife from the plug.

For, oh to know the bliss and glow that good tobacco means,

Just live among the everlasting ice.…

So judge my horror when I found my stock of magazines

Was chewed into a chowder by the mice.

A woeful week went by and not a single pill I had,

Me that would smoke my forty in a day;

I sighed, I swore, I strode the floor; I felt I would go mad:

The gospel-plugger watched me in dismay.

The brow was wet, my teeth were set, my nerves were rasping raw;

And yet that preacher couldn’t understand:

So with despair I wrestled there — when suddenly I saw

The volume he was holding in his hand.

Then something snapped inside my brain, and with an evil start

The wolf-man in me woke to rabid rage.

“I saved your lousy life,” says I; “so show you have a heart,

And tear me out a solitary page.”

He shrank and shrivelled at my words; his face went pewter white;

’Twas just as if I’d handed him a blow;

And then … and then he seemed to swell, and grow to Heaven’s height,

And in a voice that rang he answered: “No!”

I grabbed my loaded rifle and I jabbed it to his chest:

“Come on, you shrimp, give up that Book,” says I.

Well sir, he was a parson, but he stacked up with the best,

And for grit I got to hand it to the guy.

“If I should let you desecrate this Holy Word,” he said,

“My soul would be eternally accurst;

So go on, Bill, I’m ready. You can pump me full of lead

And take it, but — you’ve got to kill me first.”

Now I’m no foul assassin, though I’m full of sinful ways,

And I knew right there the fellow had me beat;

For I felt a yellow mongrel in the glory of his gaze,

And I flung my foolish firearm at his feet.

Then wearily I turned away, and dropped upon my bunk,

And there I lay and blubbered like a kid.

“Forgive me, pard,” says I at last, “for acting like a skunk,

But hide the blasted rifle.…” Which he did.

And he also hid his Bible, which was maybe just as well,

For the sight of all that paper gave me pain;

And there were crimson moments when I felt I’d go to hell

To have a single cigarette again.

And so I lay day after day, and brooded dark and deep,

Until one night I thought I’d end it all;

Then rough I roused the preacher, where he stretched pretending sleep,

With his map of horror turned towards the wall.

“See here, my pious pal,” says I, “I’ve stood it long enough.…

Behold! I’ve mixed some strychnine in a cup;

Enough to kill a dozen men — believe me it’s no bluff;

Now watch me, for I’m gonna drink it up.

You’ve seen me bludgeoned by despair through bitter days and nights,

And now you’ll see me squirming as I die.

You’re not to blame, you’ve played the game according to your lights.…

But how would Christ have played it? — Well, goodbye.…”

With that I raised the deadly drink and laid it to my lips,

But he was on me with a tiger-bound;

And as we locked and reeled and rocked with wild and wicked grips,

The poison cup went crashing to the ground.

“Don’t do it, Bill,” he madly shrieked. “Maybe I acted wrong.

See, here’s my Bible — use it as you will;

But promise me — you’ll read a little as you go along.…

You do! Then take it, Brother; smoke your fill.”

And so I did. I smoked and smoked from Genesis to Job,

And as I smoked I read each blessed word;

While in the shadow of his bunk I heard him sigh and sob,

And then … a most peculiar thing occurred.

I got to reading more and more, and smoking less and less,

Till just about the day his heart was broke,

Says I: “Here, take it back, me lad. I’ve had enough, I guess.

Your paper makes a mighty rotten smoke.”

So then and there with plea and prayer he wrestled for my soul,

And I was racked and ravaged by regrets.

But God was good, for lo! next day there came the police patrol,

With paper for a thousand cigarettes.…

So now I’m called Salvation Bill; I teach the Living Law,

And Bally-hoo the Bible with the best;

And if a guy won’t listen — why, I sock him on the jaw,

And preach the Gospel sitting on his chest.

The Ballad of Lenin’s Tomb

This is the yarn he told to me

As we sat in Casey’s Bar,

That Rooshun mug who scrammed from the jug

In the land of the Crimson Star;

That Soveet guy with the single eye,

And the face like a flaming scar.

Where Lenin lies the red flag flies, and rat-grey workers wait

To tread the gloom of Lenin’s tomb, where the Comrade lies in state.

With lagging pace they scan his face, so weary yet so firm;

For years a score they’ve laboured sore to save him from the worm.

The Kremlin walls are grimly grey, but Lenin’s Tomb is red,

And pilgrims from the Sour Lands say: “He sleeps and is not dead.”

Before their eyes in peace he lies, a symbol and a sign,

And as they pass that dome of glass they see — a God Divine.

So Doctor’s plug him full of dope, for if he drops to dust,

So will collapse their faith and hope, the whole combine will bust.

But stay, Tovarich; hark to me … a secret I’ll disclose,

For I did see what none did see; I know what no one knows.

I was Cheka terrorist — Oh I served the Soviet’s well,

Till they put me down on the bone-yard list, for the fear that I might tell;

That I might tell the things I saw, and that only I did see,

They held me in quod with a firing squad to make a corpse of me.

But I got away, and here today I’m telling my tale to you;

Though it may sound weird, by Lenin’s beard, so help me God it’s true.

I slouched across the great Red Square, and watched the waiting line.

The mongrel sons of Marx were there, convened to Lenin’s shrine;

Ten thousand men of Muscovy, Mongol and Turkoman,

Black bonnets of the Aral Sea and Tatars of Kazan.

Kalmuck and Bashkir, Lett and Finn, Georgian, Jew and Lapp,

Kirghiz and Kazakh, crowding in to gaze at Lenin’s map.

Aye, though a score of years had run I saw them pause and pray,

As mourners at the Tomb of one who died but yesterday.

I watched them in a bleary daze of bitterness and pain,

For oh, I missed the cheery blaze of vodka in my brain.

I stared, my eyes were hypnotized by the saturnine host,

When with a start that shook my heart I saw — I saw a ghost.

As in foggèd glass I saw him pass, and peer at me and grin —

A man I knew, a man I slew, Prince Boris Mazarin.

Now do not think because I drink I love the flowing bowl;

But liquor kills remorse and stills the anguish of the soul.

And there’s so much I would forget, stark horrors I have seen,

Faces and forms that haunt me yet, like shadows on a screen.

And of these sights that mar my nights the ghastliest by far

Is the death of Boris Mazarin, that soldier of the Czar.

A mighty nobleman was he; we took him by surprise;

His mother, son and daughters three we slew before his eyes.

We tortured him, with jibes and threats; then mad for glut of gore,

Upon our reeking bayonets we nailed him to the door.

But he defied us to the last, crying: “O carrion crew!

I’d die with joy could I destroy a hundred dogs like you.”

I thrust my sword into this throat; the blade was gay with blood;

We flung him to his castle moat, and stamped him in its mud.

That mighty Cossack of the Don was dead with all his race.…

And now I saw him coming on, dire vengeance in his face.

(Or was it some fantastic dream of my besotted brain?)

He looked at me with eyes a-gleam, the man whom I had slain.

He looked and bade me follow him; I could not help but go;

I joined the throng that passed along, so sorrowful and slow.

I followed with a sense of doom that shadow gaunt and grim;

Into the bowels of the Tomb I followed, followed him.

The light within was weird and dim, and icy cold the air;

My brow was wet with bitter sweat, I stumbled on the stair.

I tried to cry; my throat was dry; I sought to grip his arm;

For well I knew this man I slew was there to do us harm.

Lo! he was walking by my side, his fingers clutched my own,

This man I knew so well had died, his hand was naked bone

His face was like a skull, his eyes were caverns of decay …

And so we came to the crystal frame where lonely Lenin lay.

Without a sound we shuffled round. I sought to make a sign,

But like a vice his hand of ice was biting into mine.

With leaden pace around the place where Lenin lies at rest,

We slouched, I saw his bony claw go fumbling to his breast.

With ghastly grin he groped within, and tore his robe apart,

And from the hollow of his ribs he drew his blackened heart.…

Ah no! Oh God! A bomb, a BOMB! And as I shrieked with dread,

With fiendish cry he raised it high, and … swung at Lenin’s head.

Oh I was blinded by the flash and deafened by the roar,

And in a mess of bloody mash I wallowed on the floor.

Then Alps of darkness on me fell, and when I saw again

The leprous light ’twas in a cell, and I was racked with pain;

The ringèd round by shapes of gloom, who hoped that I would die;

For of the crowd that crammed the Tomb the sole to live was I.

They told me I had dreamed a dream that must not be revealed,

But by their eyes of evil gleam I knew my doom was sealed.

I need not tell how from my cell in Lubianka gaol,

I broke away, but listen, here’s the point of all my tale …

Outside the “Gay Pay Oo” none knew of that grim scene of gore;

They closed the Tomb, and then they threw it open as before.

And there was Lenin, stiff and still, a symbol and a sign,

And rancid races come to thrill and wonder at his Shrine;

And hold the thought: if Lenin rot the Soviet’s will decay;

So there he sleeps and calm he keeps his watch and ward for aye.

Yet if you pass that frame of glass, peer closely at his phiz,

So stern and firm it mocks the worm, it looks like wax … and is.

They tell you he’s a mummy — don’t you make the bright mistake:

They tell you — he’s a dummy; aye, a fiction and a fake.

This eye beheld the bloody bomb that bashed him on the bean.

I heard the crash, I saw the flash, yet … there he lies serene.

And by the roar that rocked the Tomb I ask: how could that be?

But if you doubt that deed of doom, just go yourself and see.

You think I’m mad, or drunk, or both.… Well, I don’t care a damn:

I tell you this: their Lenin is a waxen, showcase SHAM.

Such was the yarn he handed me,

Down there in Casey’s Bar,

That Rooshun bug with the scrambled mug

From the Land of the Commissar.

It may be true, I leave it you

To figger out how far.

The Ballad of Casey’s Billy-Goat

You’ve heard of “Casey at The Bat,”

And “Casey’s Tabble Dote”;

But now it’s time

To write the rhyme

Of “Casey’s Billy-goat.”

Pat Casey had a billy-goat he gave the name of Shamus,

Because it was (the neighbours said) a national disgrace.

And sure enough that animal was eminently famous

For masticating every rag of laundry round the place.

From shirts to skirts prodigiously it proved its powers of chewing;

The question of digestion seemed to matter not at all;

But you’ll agree, I think with me, its limit of misdoing

Was reached the day it swallowed Missis Rooney’s ould red shawl.

Now Missis Annie Rooney was a winsome widow woman,

And many a bouncing boy had sought to make her change her name;

And living just across the way ’twas surely only human

A lonesome man like Casey should be wishfully the same.

So every Sunday, shaved and shined, he’d make the fine occasion

To call upon the lady, and she’d take his hat and coat;

And supping tea it seemed that she might yield to his persuasion,

But alas! he hadn’t counted on that devastating goat.

For Shamus loved his master with a deep and dumb devotion,

And everywhere that Casey went that goat would want to go;

And though I cannot analyse a quadruped’s emotion,

They said the baste was jealous, and I reckon it was so.

For every time that Casey went to call on Missis Rooney,

Beside the gate the goat would wait with woefulness intense;

Until one day it chanced that they were fast becoming spooney,

When Shamus spied that ould red shawl a-flutter on the fence.

Now Missis Rooney loved that shawl beyond all rhyme or reason,

And maybe ’twas an heirloom or a cherished souvenir;

For judging by the way she wore it season after season,

It might have been as precious as a product of Cashmere.

So Shamus strolled towards it, and no doubt the colour pleased him,

For he biffed it and he sniffed it, as most any goat may do;

Then his melancholy vanished as a sense of hunger seized him,

And he wagged his tail with rapture as he started in to chew.

“Begorrah! you’re a daisy,” said the doting Mister Casey

To the blushing Widow Rooney as they parted at the door.

“Wid yer tenderness an’ tazin’ sure ye’ve set me heart a blazin’,

And I dread the day I’ll nivver see me Annie anny more.”

“Go on now wid yer blarney,” said the widow softly sighing;

And she went to pull his whiskers, when dismay her bosom smote.…

Her ould red shawl! ’Twas missin’ where she’d left it bravely drying —

Then she saw it disappearing — down the neck of Casey’s goat.

Fiercely flamed her Irish temper. “Look!” says she, “the thavin’ divvle!

Sure he’s made me shawl his supper. Well, I hope it’s to his taste;

But excuse me, Mister Casey, if I seem to be oncivil,

For I’ll nivver wed a man wid such a misbegotten baste.”

So she slammed the door and left him in a state of consternation,

And he couldn’t understand it, till he saw that grinning goat;

Then with eloquence he cussed it, and his final fulmination

Was a poem of profanity impossible to quote.

So blasting goats and petticoats, and feeling downright sinful,

Despairfully he wandered in to Shinnigan’s shebeen;

And straightway he proceeded to absorb a mighty skinful

Of the deadliest variety of Shinnigan’s potheen.

And when he started homeward it was in the early morning,

But Shamus followed faithfully, a yard behind his back;

Then Casey slipped and stumbled, and without the slightest warning

Like a lump of lead he tumbled — right across the railway track.

And there he lay, serenely, and defied the powers to budge him,

Reposing like a baby, with his head upon a rail;

But Shamus seemed unhappy, and from time to time would nudge him,

Though his prods of protestation were without the least avail.

Then to that goatish mind, maybe, a sense of fell disaster

Came stealing like a spectre in the dim and dreary dawn;

For his bleat of warning blended with the snoring of his master

In a chorus of calamity — but Casey slumbered on.

Yet oh, that goat was troubled, for his efforts were redoubled;

Now he tugged at Casey’s whisker, now he nibbled at his ear;

Now he shook him by the shoulder, and with fear becoming bolder,

He bellowed like a foghorn, but the sleeper did not hear.

Then up and down the railway line he scampered for assistance;

But anxiously he hurried back and sought with tug and strain

To pull his master off the track … when sudden! in the distance

He heard the roar and rumble of the fast approaching train.

Did Shamus faint and falter? No, he stood there stark and splendid.

True, his tummy was distended, but he gave his horns a toss.

By them his goathood’s honour would be gallantly defended,

And if their valour failed him — he would perish with his boss.

So dauntlessly he lowered his head, and ever clearer, clearer,

He heard the throb and thunder of the Continental Mail.

He would face that mighty monster. It was coming nearer, nearer;

He would fight it, he would smite it, but he’d never show his tail.

Can you see that hirsute hero, standing there in tragic glory?

Can you hear the Pullman porters shrieking horror to the sky?

No, you can’t; because my story has no end so grim and gory,

For Shamus did not perish and his master did not die.

At this very present moment Casey swaggers hale and hearty,

And Shamus strolls beside him with a bright bell at his throat;

While the recent Missis Rooney is the gayest of the party,

For now she’s Missis Casey and she’s crazy for that goat.

You’re wondering what happened? Well, you know that truth is stranger

Than the wildest brand of fiction, so I’ll tell you without shame.…

There was Shamus and his master in the face of awful danger,

And the giant locomotive dashing down in smoke and flame.…

What power on earth could save them? Yet a golden inspiration

To gods and goats alike may come, so in that brutish brain

A thought was born — the ould red shawl.… Then rearing with elation,

Like lightning Shamus threw it up — AND FLAGGED AND STOPPED THE TRAIN.