Or "At him, Bill, again!"
Now this behaviour did evince
A longing for a foe to mince;
An instinct fitter for a Prince
Than for a shepherd swain.
HOW JACK SLEW THE GIANT CORMORAN. —
Where good Saint Michael's craggy mount
Rose Venus-like from out the sea,
A giant dwelt; a mighty- Count
In his own view, forsooth, was he;
And not unlike one, verily,
(A foreign Count, like those we meet
In Leicester Square, or Regent Street),
I mean with respect to his style of hair,
Mustachios, and beard, and ferocious air, —
His figure was quite another affair.
This odd-looking "bird"
Was a Richard the Third,
Four times taller and five as wide;
Or a clumsy Punch,
With his cudgel and hunch,
Into a monster magnified!
In quest of prey across the sea
He'd wade, with ponderous club;
For not the slightest "bones" made he
Of "boning" people's "grub."
There was screaming and crying "Oh dear!" and "Oh law
When the terrified maids the monster saw;
As he stalked – tramp! tramp!
Stamp! stamp! stamp! stamp!
Coming on like the statue in "Don Giovanni."
"Oh my!" they would cry,
"Here he comes; let us fly!
Did you ever behold such a horrid old brawny? —
A – h!" and off they would run
Like "blazes," or "fun,"
Followed, pell-mell, by man and master;
While the grisly old fellow
Would after them bellow,
To make them scamper away the faster.
When this mountain bugaboo
Had filled his belly, what would he do?
He'd shoulder his club with an ox or two,
Stick pigs and sheep in his belt a few, —
There were two or three in it, and two or three under
(I hope ye have all the "organ of wonder");
Then back again to his mountain cave
He would stump o'er the dry land and stride through the wave.
What was to be done?
For this was no fun;
And it must be clear to every one,
The new Tariff itself would assuredly not
Have supplied much longer the monstrous pot
Of this beef-eating, bull-headed, "son-of-a-gun."
Upon a night as dark as pitch
A light was dancing on the sea; —
Marked it the track of the Water Witch?
Could it a Jack-a-lantern be?
A lantern it was, and borne by Jack;
A spade and a pickaxe he had at his back;
In his belt a good cow-horn;
He was up to some game you may safely be sworn.
Saint Michael's Mount he quickly gained,
And there the livelong night remained.
What he did
The darkness hid;
Nor needeth it that I should say:
Nor would you have seen,
If there you had been
Looking on at the break of day.
Morning dawned on the ocean blue;
Shrieked the gull and the wild sea-mew;
The donkey brayed, and the grey cock crew;
Jack put to his mouth his good cow-horn,
And a blast therewith did blow.
The Giant heard the note of scorn,
And woke and cried "Hallo!"
He popped out his head with his night-cap on,
To look who his friend might be,
And eke his spectacles did don,
That he mote the better see.
"I'll broil thee for breakfast," he roared amain,
"For breaking my repose."
"Yaa!" valiant Jack returned again,
With his fingers at his nose.
Forward the monster tramps apace,
Like to an elephant running a race;
Like a walking-stick he handles his mace.
Away, too venturous wight, decamp!
In two more strides your skull he smashes; —
One! Gracious goodness! what a stamp!
Two! Ha! the plain beneath him crashes:
Down he goes, full fathoms three.