Ballad. To the Tune of "Salley in Our Alley."
OF all the twice ten thousand bardsThat ever penned a canto,Whom Pudding or whom Praise rewardsFor lining a portmanteau;Of all the poets ever known,From Grub-street to Fop's Alley,The Muse may boast--the World must ownThere's none like pretty Gally!
He writes as well as any Miss,Has published many a poem;The shame is yours, the gain is his,In case you should not know 'em:He has ten thousand pounds a year--I do not mean to vally--His songs at sixpence would be dear,So give them gratis, Gaily!
And if this statement should seem queer,Or set down in a hurry,Go, ask (if he will be sincere)His bookseller--John Murray.Come, say, how many have been sold,And don't stand shilly-shally,Of bound and lettered, red and gold,Well printed works of Gally.
For Astley's circus Upton writes,And also for the Surry; (sic)Fitzgerald weekly still recites,Though grinning Critics worry:Miss Holford's Peg, and Sotheby's Saul,In fame exactly tally;From Stationer's Hall to Grocer's StallThey go--and so does Gally.
He rode upon a Camel's humpThrough Araby the sandy,Which surely must have hurt the rumpOf this poetic dandy.His rhymes are of the costive kind,And barren as each valleyIn deserts which he left behindHas been the Muse of Gally.
He has a Seat in Parliament,Is fat and passing wealthy;And surely he should be contentWith these and being healthy:But Great Ambition will misruleMen at all risks to sally,--Now makes a poet--now a fool,And we know which--of Gally.
Some in the playhouse like to row,Some with the Watch to battle,Exchanging many a midnight blowTo Music of the Rattle.Some folks like rowing on the Thames,Some rowing in an Alley,But all the Row my fancy claimsIs rowing--of my Gally.
"Th' unloaded camel, pacing slow.Crops the rough herbage or the tamarisk spray."
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