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A Pathetic Ballad
BEN BATTLE was a soldier bold, | |
| And used to war’s alarms; | |
| But a cannon-ball took off his legs, | |
| So he laid down his arms. | |
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| Now as they bore him off the field, | 5 |
| Said he, “Let others shoot; | |
| For here I leave my second leg, | |
| And the Forty-second Foot.” | |
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| The army-surgeons made him limbs: | |
| Said he, “They ’re only pegs; | 10 |
| But there ’s as wooden members quite | |
| As represent my legs.” | |
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| Now Ben he loved a pretty maid,— | |
| Her name was Nelly Gray; | |
| So he went to pay her his devours, | 15 |
| When he devoured his pay. | |
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| But when he called on Nelly Gray, | |
| She made him quite a scoff; | |
| And when she saw his wooden legs, | |
| Began to take them off. | 20 |
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| “O Nelly Gray! O Nelly Gray! | |
| Is this your love so warm? | |
| The love that loves a scarlet coat | |
| Should be more uniform.” | |
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| Said she, “I loved a soldier once, | 25 |
| For he was blithe and brave; | |
| But I will never have a man | |
| With both legs in the grave. | |
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| “Before you had those timber toes | |
| Your love I did allow; | 30 |
| But then, you know, you stand upon | |
| Another footing now.” | |
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| “O Nelly Gray! O Nelly Gray! | |
| For all your jeering speeches, | |
| At duty’s call I left my legs | 35 |
| In Badajos’s breaches.” | |
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| “Why, then,” said she, “you ’ve lost the feet | |
| Of legs in war’s alarms, | |
| And now you cannot wear your shoes | |
| Upon your feats of arms!” | 40 |
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| “O false and fickle Nelly Gray! | |
| I know why you refuse: | |
| Though I ’ve no feet, some other man | |
| Is standing in my shoes. | |
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| “I wish I ne’er had seen your face; | 45 |
| But, now a long farewell! | |
| For you will be my death;—alas! | |
| You will not be my Nell!” | |
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| Now when he went from Nelly Gray | |
| His heart so heavy got, | 50 |
| And life was such a burden grown, | |
| It made him take a knot. | |
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| So round his melancholy neck | |
| A rope he did intwine, | |
| And, for his second time in life, | 55 |
| Enlisted in the Line. | |
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| One end he tied around a beam, | |
| And then removed his pegs; | |
| And as his legs were off,—of course | |
| He soon was off his legs. | 60 |
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| And there he hung till he was dead | |
| As any nail in town; | |
| For, though distress had cut him up, | |
| It could not cut him down. | |
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| A dozen men sat on his corpse, | 65 |
| To find out why he died,— | |
| And they buried Ben in four cross-roads, | |
| With a stake in his inside. | |
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