THE PRECOCIOUS BABY
A Very True Tale

A

(To be sung to the Air of the "Whistling Oyster.")

a prophet by trade –

N elderly person
With his quips and tips

On withered old lips,

He married a young and a beautiful maid :
The cunning old blade

Though rather decayed,

He married a beautiful, beautiful maid.

She was only eighteen, and as fair as could be, With her tempting smiles

And maidenly wiles,

And he was a trifle of seventy-three:

Now what she could see

Is a puzzle to me,

In a buffer of seventy

seventy-three!

Of all their acquaintances bidden (or bad)
With their loud high jinks

And underbred winks

None thought they'd a family have

had;

A dear little lad

Who drove 'em half mad,

but they

For he turned out a horribly fast little cad.

For when he was born he astonished all by,
With their "Law, dear me !"
"Did ever you see?"

He'd a weed in his mouth and a glass in his

eye,

A hat all awry

An octagon tie,

And a miniature

miniature glass in his eye.

He grumbled at wearing a frock and a cap,
With his " Oh, dear, oh!"

And his "Hang it ! you know!"

And he turned up his nose at his excellent pap "My friends, it's a tap

That is not worth a rap.'

(Now this was remarkably excellent pap.)

He'd chuck his nurse under the chin, and he'd

Then I'd wish, if you please, for to hook it

away."

His father, a simple old gentleman, he
With nursery rhymé

And "Once on a time,"

Would tell him the story of "Little Bo P," "So pretty was she,

So pretty and wee,

As pretty, as pretty, as pretty could be."

But the babe, with a dig that would startle an ox,

The name of his father he 'd couple and pair (With his ill-bred laugh

And insolent chaff)

With those of the nursery heroines rare,

Virginia the fair,

Or Good Golden hair,

Till the nuisance was more than a prophet could

bear.

"There's Jill and White Cat "

(said the little

bold brat,

With his loud " Ha, ha !”)

"'Oo sly ickle pa!

Wiz 'oo Beauty, Bo Peep, and 'oo Mrs. Jack

Sprat !

I've noticed 'oo pat

My pretty White Cat

I sink dear mamma ought to know about dat!"

He early determined to marry and wive,

For better or worse,

With his elderly nurse

Which the poor little
boy did n't live

to contrive;

His health did n't
thrive -

No longer alive,

He died an enfeebled old dotard at five!

MORAL.

Now elderly men of the bachelor crew,
With wrinkled hose

And spectacled nose,

Don't marry at all - you may take it as true
If ever you do

For

The step you will rue,

your babes will be elderly — elderly too.

TO PHOEBE

"GE

ENTLE, modest little flower,
Sweet epitome of May,

Love me but for half-an-hour,
Love me, love me, little fay."
Sentences so fiercely flaming
In your tiny shell-like ear,
I should always be exclaiming
If I loved you, PHOBE dear!

"Smiles that thrill from any distance Shed upon me while I sing ! Please ecstaticize existence,

Love me, oh, thou fairy thing! Words like these, outpouring sadly, You'd perpetually hear,

If I loved you, fondly, madly;

But I do not, PHOEBE dear!