Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 284, November 24, 1827 - Various - Страница 3

Princess Helen was born of an egg,

And scarcely ten years had gone by,

When Theseus beginning to beg,

Decoyed the young chicken to fly.

When Tyndarus heard the disaster,

He crackled and thunder'd like Etna,

So out gallop'd Pollux and Castor,

And caught her a furlong from Gretna.

Singing rattledum, Greek Romanorum,

And hey classicality row.

Singing birchery, floggera, borum,

And folderol whack rowdy dow.

The newspapers puffed her each day,

Till the princes of Greece came to woo her,

Then coaxing the rest to give way,

She took Menalaus unto her,

So said they, "though we grieve to resign,

Yet if ever you're put to a shift,

Let your majesty drop us a line,

And we'll all of us lend you a lift.

With our rattledum, &c."

Menelaus was happy to win her.

But she soon found a cure for his passion,

By hobbing or nobbing at dinner,

With Paris, a Trojan of fashion.

This chap was a slyish young dog,

The most jessamy fellow in life,

For he drank Menalaus' grog,

And d—me made off with his wife.

Singing rattledum, &c.

The princes were sent for, who swore

They would punish this finikin boy;

So Achilles and two or three more,

Undertook the destruction of Troy.

But Achilles grew quite ungenteel,

And prevented their stirring a peg,

Till Paris let fly at his heel,

And he found himself laid by the leg.

With his rattledum, &c.

The Grecians demolish'd the city,

And then (as the poets have told)

Dame Helen might still be called pretty,

Though very near sixty years old.

Menelaus, when madam was found,

Took her snugly away in his chaise,

So Troy being burnt to the ground,

Why the story goes off with a blaze.

And a rattledum, &c.