LITMIR.BIZ

      BLAND only eats bad boys, who swear—

      Who can behave, but don’t—

      Disgraceful lads who say “don’t care,”

      And “shan’t,” and “can’t,” and “won’t.”

      Who wet their shoes and learn to box,

      And say what isn’t true,

      Who bite their nails and jam their frocks,

      And make long noses too;

      Who kick a nurse’s aged shin,

      And sit in sulky mopes;

      And boys who twirl poor kittens in

      Distracting zoëtropes.

      But JAMES, when he was quite a youth,

      Had often been to school,

      And though so bad, to tell the truth,

      He wasn’t quite a fool.

      At logic few with him could vie;

      To his peculiar sect

      He could propose a fallacy

      With singular effect.

      So, when his Mentors said, “Expound—

      Why eat good children—why?”

      Upon his Mentors he would round

      With this absurd reply:

      “I have been taught to love the good—

      The pure—the unalloyed—

      And wicked boys, I’ve understood,

      I always should avoid.

      “Why do I eat good children—why?

      Because I love them so!”

      (But this was empty sophistry,

      As your Papa can show.)

      Now, though the learning of his friends

      Was truly not immense,

      They had a way of fitting ends

      By rule of common sense.

      “Away, away!” his Mentors cried,

      “Thou uncongenial pest!

      A quirk’s a thing we can’t abide,

      A quibble we detest!

      “A fallacy in your reply

      Our intellect descries,

      Although we don’t pretend to spy

      Exactly where it lies.

      “In misery and penal woes

      Must end a glutton’s joys;

      And learn how ogres punish those

      Who dare to eat good boys.

      “Secured by fetter, cramp, and chain,

      And gagged securely—so—

      You shall be placed in Drury Lane,

      Where only good lads go.

      “Surrounded there by virtuous boys,

      You’ll suffer torture wus

      Than that which constantly annoys

      Disgraceful TANTALUS.

      (“If you would learn the woes that vex

      Poor TANTALUS, down there,

      Pray borrow of Papa an ex-

      Purgated LEMPRIERE.)

      “But as for BLAND who, as it seems,

      Eats only naughty boys,

      We’ve planned a recompense that teems

      With gastronomic joys.

      “Where wicked youths in crowds are stowed

      He shall unquestioned rule,

      And have the run of Hackney Road

      Reformatory School!”