The Age of Wisdom

HO! pretty page, with the dimpled chin,

That never has known the barber's shear,

All your wish is woman to win;

This is the way that boys begin, --

Wait till you come to forty year.

Curly gold locks cover foolish brains;

Billing and cooing is all your cheer, --

Sighing, and singing of midnight strains,

Under Bonnybell's window-panes, --

Wait till you come to forty year.

Forty times over let Michaelmas pass;

Grizzling hair the brain doth clear;

Then you know a boy is an ass,

Then you know the worth of a lass, --

Once you ahve come to forty year.

Pledge me round; I bid ye declare,

All good fellows whose beards are gray, --

Did not the fairest of the fair

Common grow and wearisome ere

Even a month was past away?

The reddest lips that ever have kissed,

The brightest eyes that ever have shone

May pray and whisper and we not list,

Or look away and never be missed, --

Ere yet ever a month is gone.

Gillian's dead! God rest her bier, --

How I loved her twenty years syne!

Marian's married; but I sit here,

Alone and merry at forty year,

Dipping my nose in the Gascon wine.

William Makepeace Thackeray

The Sorrows of Werther

WERTHER had a love for Charlotte

Such as words could never utter;

Would you know how first he met her?

She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady,

And a moral man was Werther,

And for all the wealth of Indies,

Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sighed and pined and ogled,

And his passion boiled and bubbled,

Till he blew his silly brains out,

And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, having seen his body

Borne before her on a shutter,

Like a well-conducted person,

Went on cutting bread and butter.

William Makepeace Thackeray

Little Billee

THERE were three sailors in Bristol City,

Who took a boat and went to sea.

But first with beef and captain's biscuit,

And pickled pork they loaded she.

There was gorging Jack and guzzling Jimmy,

And the youngest he was little Billee.

Now when they'd got as far as the Equator

They'd nothing left but one split pea.

Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy,

"I am extremely hungaree."

To gorging Jack says guzzling Jimmy,

"We've nothing left, us must eat we."

Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy,

"With one another we shouldn't agree!

There's little Bill, he's young and tender,

We're old and tough, so let's eat he."

"O Billy! we're going to kill and eat you,

So undo the button of your chemie."

When Bill he heard this information,

He used his pocket-handkerchie.

"First let me say my catechism

Which my poor mother taught to me."

"Make haste! make haste!" says guzzling Jimmy,

While Jack pulled out his snickersnee.

Billy went up to the main top-gallant mast,

And down he fell on his bended knee,

He scarce had come to the Twelfth Commandment

When up he jumps - "There's land I see!"

"Jerusalem and Madagascar

And North and South Amerikee,

There's the British flag a-riding at anchor,

With Admiral Napier, K.C.B"

So when they got aboard of the Admiral's,

He hanged fat Jack and flogged Jimmee,

But as for little Bill, he made him

The Captain of a Seventy-three.

William Makepeace Thackeray