THERE was a young woman, and what do you think? She lived upon nothing but paper and ink! For ink and for paper she only did care, Though they wrinkle the forehead and rumple the hair. And she bought a gold pen, and she plied it so fast That she brought forth her three-volume novel at last; And she called it 'The Ghoul of Mayfair,' by 'Sirène;' And I read it, reread it, and read it again. 'Twas about a young girl, whom the gods, in their grace, Had endowed with a balefully beautiful face; While her lithe, supple body and limbs were as those Of a pantheress (minus the spots, I suppose). And oh! reader, her eyes! and oh! reader, her hair! I can't screw my muse to the exquisite pitch I may mention at once that she'd dabbled in vice Was in breaking commandments from morning till night. And moreover, to deepen her wonderful spell, She was not only vicious, but artful as well; For she managed three husbands at once-to begin— (Just by way of a trifle to keep her hand in). The first, a bold indigo-broker was he; Now, three doating husbands to start with in life Upon Barbara Blackshepe (for so she was called). And it took but a very few pages to tell How by means of a rope, and a knife, and a well, And some charcoal, and poison, and powder and shot, She effectually widowed herself of the lot. Then she suddenly found that she couldn't control Where she started a kind of a sort of a-eh? There were tenors, priests, poets, and parsons-a host! The nobility, gentry, and public all round Nay, the very policemen that knocked at the door To remonstrate were collared, and never seen more; And 'tis rumoured that bishops deserted their lambs To enrol among "Barbara's Rollicking Rams." And their dowdy, respectable, commonplace wives To the scorn of "Sirène" and her "Ghoul of Mayfair!" (This light-I might even add frivolous-tone To our muttons. Who dances, the piper must pay, And the Hebrew came down like the wolf on the fold Then, says she: "There are no more commandments to break; I have lived-I have loved-I have eaten my cake!" (Which she had, with a vengeance); so what does she do? Why, she takes a revolver, and stabs herself through! * Now, this naughty but nice little Barbara B. Had, I own, amongst others, demoralised me |