Modern Street Ballads

SHOVEL AND BROOM.

Though I’m but a Chimney Sweep I took a ticket
To go on one evening to Dusty Tom’s room,
Who dancing now teaches—he knows how to kick it,
For which he has quitted the shovel and broom,
For bow and the fiddle, pouchette down the middle,
He’s quitted for ever the shovel and broom.
      The shovel and broom, the shovel and broom,
      He has quitted for ever the shovel and broom.

I got for my partner, Paulina, the daughter,
Of Master Mount saddle, the Angel Inn groom,
Her red lips and plump figure made my mouth water,
And I fell in love, as ve valtzed round the room.
O, sich a creatur! My eye, vot a creatur!
A partner so fit for a knight of the broom,
      The shovel and broom, a knight of the broom,
      A partner so fit for a knight of the broom.

The whole of next morning I thought of her beauties,
And I, my employment could hardly resume,
Neglected, in fact, my professional duties,
And valtzed in the streets, as I’d valtzed in the room.
Till Jack Cragg the Carter, cried, Vot are you arter?
There twisting about with your shovel and broom,
      Your shovel and broom, your shovel and broom,
      For I valtzed in the mud with my shovel and broom.

Soon after, her father called me from the Cellar,
To a job at his lodging, a first floor back room,
As Pauline was alone there, I ventured to tell her
My love—but she vondered how I could presume,
In the sphere I was moving, to talk about loving,
And she turned up her nose at my shovel and broom.
      My shovel and broom, my shovel and broom,
      She turned up her nose at my shovel and broom.

To implore her I fell on my knees, but by Gemini,
She spurned me and quitted the room in a fume,
So bewildered was I, when my boy left the chimney,
I cauled him Pauline, as he stood with his broom,
Then ‘cos the young beggar did grin like a nigger,
I battered his head with my shovel and broom.
      My shovel and broom, my shovel and broom,
      I battered his head with my shovel and broom.

O, this was my first love, and thus I was cross’d,
Ah, scorned by Paulina, how hard is my doom,
I grow moloncolly, this vorld I am lost in,
No more I’ll go valtzing in Dusty Tom’s room.
But think of her scorning, crying sveep of a morning—
And veep as I vorks with my shovel and broom,
      My shovel and broom, my shovel and broom,
      I’ll veep as I vorks with my shovel and broom.

<< If I Had a Donkey Wot Wouldn't Go   Vilikins and His Dinah >>


The End As I Know It: A Novel of Millennial Anxiety, by staggernation.com proprietor Kevin Shay, is now available in paperback.

Please visit kshay.com for more information.