Percival Leigh - Jack The Giant Killer

I sing the deeds of famous Jack,
The doughty Giant Killer hight;
How he did various monsters "whack,"
And so became a gallant knight.
In Arthur's days of splendid fun
(His Queen was Guenever the Pliant), —
Ere Britain's sorrows had begun;
When every cave contained its giant;
When griffins fierce as bats were rife;
And till a knight had slain his dragon,
At trifling risk of limbs and life,
He did n't think he'd much to brag on;

When wizards o'er the welkin flew;
Ere science had devised balloon;
And 'twas a common thing to view
A fairy ballet by the moon; —
Our hero played his valiant pranks;
Earned loads of kudos, vulgô glory,
A lady, "tin," and lots of thanks; —
Relate, oh Muse! his wondrous story.

A Giant was, I should premise,
A hulking lout of monstrous size;
He mostly stood – I know you 'll laugh —
About as high as a giraffe.

His waist was some three yards in girth:
When he walked he shook the earth.
His eyes were of the class called "goggle,"
Fitter for the scowl than ogle.

His mouth, decidedly carnivorous,
Like a shark's, – the Saints deliver us!
He yawned like a huge sarcophagus,
For he was an Anthropophagus,
And his tusks were huge and craggy;
His hair, and his brows, and his beard, were shaggy.

I ween on the whole he was aught but a Cupid,
And exceedingly fierce, and remarkably stupid;
His brain partaking strongly of lead,
How well soe'er he was off for head;
Having frequently one or two
Crania more than I or you.

He was bare of arm and leg,
But buskins had, and a philabeg;
Also a body-coat of mail
That shone with steel or brazen scale,
Like to the back of a crocodile's tail;

A crown he wore,
And a mace he bore
That was knobbed and spiked with adamant;
It would smash the skull
Of the mountain bull,
Or scatter the brains of the elephant.

His voice than the tempest was louder and gruffer —
Well; so much for the uncouth "buffer."

Of a right noble race was Jack,
For kith and kin he did not lack,
Whom tuneful bards have puffed;
The Seven bold Champions ranked among
That highly celebrated throng,
And Riquet with the Tuft.

Jack of the Beanstalk, too, was one;
And Beauty's Beast; and Valour's son,
Sir Amadis de Gaul:
But if I had a thousand tongues,
A throat of brass, and iron lungs,
I could not sing them all.

His sire was a farmer hearty and free;
He dwelt where the Land's End frowns on the sea,
And the sea at the Land's End roars again,
Tit for tat, land and main.

He was a worthy wight, and so
He brought up his son in the way he should go;
He sought not – not he! – to make him a "muff;"
He never taught him a parcel of stuff;

He bothered him not with trees and plants,
Nor told him to study the manners of ants.
He himself had never been
Bored with the Saturday Magazine;
The world might be flat, or round, or square,
He knew not, and he did not care;
Nor wished that a boy of his should be
A Cornish "Infant Prodigy."

But he stored his mind with learning stable,
The deeds of the Knights of the famed Round Table;
Legends and stories, chants and lays,
Of witches and warlocks, goblins and fays;
How champions of might
Defended the right,

Freed the captive, and succoured the damsel distrest
Till Jack would exclaim —
"If I don't do the same,
An' I live to become a man, — I'm blest! "

Jack lightly recked of sport or play
Wherein young gentlemen delight,
But he would wrestle any day,
Box, or at backsword fight.

He was a lad of special "pluck,"
And strength beyond his years,
Or science, gave him aye the luck
To drub his young compeers.

His task assigned, like Giles or Hodge,
The woolly flocks to tend,
His wits to warlike fray or "dodge"
Wool-gathering oft would wend.

And then he'd wink his sparkling eye,
And nod his head right knowingly,
And sometimes "Won't I just!" would cry,
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.

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.