Ballad of the Philanthropist
POMONA Road and Gardens, N.,Were pure as they were fair—In other districts much I fear,That vulgar language shocks the ear,But brawling wives or noisy menWere never heard of there.
No burglar fixed his dread abodeIn that secure retreat,There were no public-houses nigh,But chapels low and churches high,You might have thought Pomona RoadA quite ideal beat!
Yet that was not at all the viewTaken by B. 13.That active and intelligentPoliceman deemed that he was meantProfound detective deeds to do,And that repose was mean.
Now there was nothing to detectPomona Road along—None faked a cly, nor cracked a crib,Nor prigged a wipe, nor told a fib,—Minds cultivated and selectSlip rarely into wrong!
Thus bored to desolation wentThe Peeler on his beat;He know not Love, he did not care,If Love be born on mountains bare;Nay, crime to punish, or prevent,Was more than dalliance sweet!
The weary wanderer, day by day,Was marked by Howard Fry—A neighbouring philanthropist,Who saw what that Policeman missed—A sympathetic ‘Well-a-day’He’d moan, and pipe his eye.
‘What can I do,’ asked Howard Fry,‘To soothe that brother’s pain?His glance when first we met was keen,Most martial and erect his mien’(What mien may mean, I know not I)‘But he must joy again.’
‘I’ll start on a career of crime,I will,’ said Howard Fry—He spake and acted! Deeds of bale(With which I do not stain my tale)He wrought like mad time after time,Yet wrought them blushfully.
And now when ’buses night by nightWere stopped, conductors slain,When youths and men, and maids unwed,Were stabbed or knocked upon the head,Then B. 13 grew sternly bright,And was himself again!
Pomona Road and Gardens, N.,Are now a name of fear.Commercial travellers flee in haste,Revolvers girt about the waistAre worn by city gentlemenWho have their mansions near.
But B. 13 elated goes,Detection in his eye;While Howard Fry does deeds of bale(With which I do not stain my tale)To lighten that Policeman’s woes,But does them blushfully.