| I WOULD that all men my hard case would know, | |
| How grievously I suffer for no sin: | |
| I, Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, for lo! | |
| I of my landlady am lockèd in | |
| For being short on this sad Saturday, | 5 |
| Nor having shekels of silver wherewith to pay: | |
| She turned and is departed with my key; | |
| Wherefore, not even as other boarders free, | |
| I sing, (as prisoners to their dungeon-stones | |
| When for ten days they expiate a spree): | 10 |
| Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones! | |
| |
| One night and one day have I wept my woe; | |
| Nor wot I, when the morrow doth begin, | |
| If I shall have to write to Briggs & Co., | |
| To pray them to advance the requisite tin | 15 |
| For ransom of their salesman, that he may | |
| Go forth as other boarders go alway— | |
| As those I hear now flocking from their tea, | |
| Led by the daughter of my landlady | |
| Piano-ward. This day, for all my moans, | 20 |
| Dry-bread and water have been servèd me. | |
| Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones! | |
| |
| Miss Amabel Jones is musical, and so | |
| The heart of the young he-boarder doth win, | |
| Playing "The Maiden's Prayer" adagio— | 25 |
| That fetcheth him, as fetcheth the "bunko skin" | |
| The innocent rustic. For my part, I pray | |
| That Badarjewska maid may wait for aye | |
| Ere sits she with a lover, as did we | |
| Once sit together, Amabel! Can it be | 30 |
| That all that arduous wooing not atones | |
| For Saturday's shortness of trade dollars three? | |
| Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones! | |
| |
| Yea! She forgets the arm that was wont to go | |
| Around her waist. She wears a buckle whose pin | 35 |
| Galleth the crook of her young man's elbow. | |
| I forget not, for I that youth have been! | |
| Smith was aforetime the Lothario gay. | |
| Yet once, I mind me, Smith was forced to stay | |
| Close in his room. Not calm as I was he; | 40 |
| But his noise brought no pleasaunce, verily. | |
| Small ease he got of playing on the bones | |
| Or hammering on the stove-pipe, that I see. | |
| Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones! | |
| |
| Thou, for whose fear the figurative crow | 45 |
| I eat, accursed be thou and all thy kin! | |
| Thee I will show up—yea, up I will show | |
| Thy too-thick buckwheats and thy tea too thin. | |
| Ay! here I dare thee, ready for the fray: | |
| Thou dost not "keep a first-class house" I say! | 50 |
| It does not with the advertisements agree. | |
| Thou lodgest a Briton with a puggaree, | |
| And thou hast harbored Jacobses and Cohns, | |
| Also a Mulligan. Thus denounce I thee! | |
| Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones! | 55 |
| |
Envoy
Boarders! the worst I have not told to ye: | |
| She hath stolen my trousers, that I may not flee | |
| Privily by the window. Hence these groans. | |
| There is no fleeing in a robe de nuit. | |
| Behold the deeds that are done of Mrs. Jones! | 60 |
