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Martin: A Bon Gaultier Ballad
Can't I turn the honest penny, scribbling for the weekly
press,
And in writing Sunday libels drown my private wretchedness?
Oh, to feel the wild pulsation that in manhood's dawn
I knew,
When my days were all before me, and my years were
twenty-two!
When I smoked my independent pipe along the Quadrant
wide,
With the many larks of London flaring up on every
side;
When I went the pace so wildly, caring little what
might come;
Coffee-milling care and sorrow, with a nose-adapted
thumb;
Felt the exquisite enjoyment, tossing nightly off, oh
heavens!
]kandies at the Cider Cellars, kidneys smoking-hot at
Evans'!
Or in the Adelphi sitting, half in rapture, half in tears,
Saw the glorious melodrama conjure up the shades of
years!
Saw Jack Sheppard, noble stripling, act his wondrous
feats again,
Snapping Newgate's bars of iron, like an infant's daisy
chain.
Might was right, and all the terrors, which had held the
world in awe,
Were despised, and prigging prospered, spite of Laurie,
spite of law,
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