Thus, tilting here and jilting there,
He fought a foe or he fooled a fair,
But little recking how;
So deadly smooth, so cruel and vain,
He might have made a capital Cain,
Or a splendid dandy now.
In short, if you looked o'er land and sea,
From London to the Niger,
You certainly must have said with me,--
If Richard was lion, Marcadee
Might well have been the tiger.
A month went by. They lay there still,
And chafed with nothing but time to kill,--
A tough old foe. Observe the way
They laid him out, as thus:--One day,--
'Twas after dinner and afternoon,
When the noise was over of knife and fork,
And only was heard an occasional cork
And Blondel idly thrumming a tune,--
King Richard pushed the wine along,
And rapped the table, and cried, "A song!
Dulness I hold a shame, a sin
Against good wine. Come, Blondel, begin!"
Blondel coughed,--was "half afraid,"--
Was "out last night on a serenade,
And caught a cold,"--his "voice was gone,--
And really, just now, his head"--"Go on!"
He bowed, and swept the chords--"Brrrrang"--
With a handful of notes, and thus he sang:--
BLONDEL.
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