Billy's Rose [George R. Sims]-Kenneth Williams

[ti:Billy's Rose (George R. Sims)] [ar:Kenneth Williams] [al:Parlour Poetry - Comic, Patriotic and Improving Verse from the Victorian Age] [by:] [offset:0] [00:00.00]Billy's Rose [George R. Sims] - Kenneth Williams [00:00.77]Billy's dead and gone to glory [00:03.01]So has Billy's sister Nell [00:05.29]There's a tale I know about them were [00:07.13]I poet I would tell [00:08.47] [00:09.16]Soft it comes with perfume laden like [00:11.93]A breath of country air [00:13.16] [00:13.71]Wafted down that filthy alley bringing fragrant odours there [00:17.71] [00:19.10]In that vile and filthy alley long ago one Winter's day [00:22.38]Dying quick of want and fever hapless patient Billy lay [00:26.54] [00:27.05]While beside him sat his sister [00:28.68]In the garret's dismal gloom [00:29.96] [00:30.49]Cheering with her gentle presence [00:32.48]Billy's pathway to the tomb [00:34.72] [00:35.82]Many a tale of elf and fairy did she tell the dying child [00:39.10] [00:39.63]Till his eyes lost half their anguish and his worn [00:42.25] [00:42.87]Wan features smiled [00:44.40] [00:45.16]Tales herself she heard hap-hazard [00:47.76]Caught amid the Babel roar [00:48.97] [00:49.61]Lisped about by tiny gossips playing round their mother's door [00:53.19] [00:54.02]Then she felt his wasted fingers tighten feebly as she told [00:57.77]How beyond this dismal alley lay a land of shining gold [01:01.53] [01:02.43]Where when all the pain was over [01:04.15]When all the tears were shed [01:06.17]He would be a white frocked angel [01:08.71]With a gold thing on his head [01:10.31] [01:11.50]Then she told some garbled story of a kind-eyed Savior's love [01:16.41]How he built for little children great big playgrounds up above [01:20.92]Where they sang and played at hop-scotch and at horses [01:23.31]All the day [01:24.45]And where the beadles or policemen never frightened them away [01:28.29] [01:29.26]This was Nell's idea of heaven [01:31.01] [01:31.72]Just a bit of what she'd heard [01:33.67]With a little bit invented with a little bit inferred [01:36.50]But her brother lay and listened and he seemed to understand [01:40.22] [01:41.03]For he closed his eyes and murmured [01:43.67]He could see the Promised Land [01:45.71] [01:46.62]Yes he whispered I can see it [01:50.60]I can see it sister Nell [01:52.70]Oh the children look so happy they are all so strong and well [01:57.62]I can see them there with Jesus [01:59.49]He is playing with them too [02:01.70]Let us run away and join them [02:03.76]If there's room for me and you [02:05.58] [02:06.63]She was eight this little maiden [02:08.38] [02:08.93]And her life had all been spent [02:10.80]In the garret and the alley [02:12.43]Where they starved to pay the rent [02:14.50]When a drunken father's curses and a drunken mother's blows [02:17.88]Drove her forth into the gutter from [02:19.64]The day's dawn to its close [02:21.32] [02:22.55]But she knew enough this outcast [02:24.13]Just to tell the sinking boy [02:25.72]You must die before you are able [02:27.75]All these blessings to enjoy [02:28.97]You must die she whispered [02:30.82]Billy I am not even ill [02:32.83]But I will come to you dear brother [02:34.74]Yes I promise that I will [02:36.61]You are dying little brother [02:38.22]You are dying oh so fast [02:40.18]I heard father say to mother that he knew you couldn't last [02:44.01]They will put you in a coffin then you'll wake [02:46.52]And be up there [02:47.29] [02:47.88]While I am left alone to suffer in [02:49.57]This garret bleak and bare [02:50.67] [02:51.28]Yes I know it answered Billy [02:53.97]Ah sister I do not mind [02:56.44]Gentle Jesus will not beat me [02:58.50]He's not cruel or unkind [03:00.89]But I can't help thinking [03:02.22]Nelly I should like to take away [03:04.18]Something sister that you gave me [03:06.63]I might look at every day [03:08.02] [03:08.55]In the Summer you remember how the mission took us out [03:11.25]To that great green lovely meadow [03:13.36]Where we played and ran about [03:14.95]And the van that took us halted [03:17.13]By a bright green patch of land [03:19.63]Where the fine red blossoms grew dear [03:22.71]Half as big as mother's hand [03:24.37]Nell I asked the good kind teacher [03:26.86]What they called such flowers as those [03:29.08]That he told me that I remember [03:30.82]The pretty name was rose [03:32.78] [03:33.55]I have never seen them since [03:34.87]Dear how I wish that I had one [03:37.62]Just to keep and think of you dear [03:39.72]When I am up beyond the sun [03:41.56] [03:43.56]Not a word spoke little Nelly [03:45.26]But at night when Billy slept [03:46.52]On she flung her scanty garments [03:48.31]And then down the stairs she crept [03:50.51]Through the silent streets of [03:51.90]London running nimbly as a fawn [03:54.37]Running on and running ever till [03:56.23]The night had changed to dawn [03:57.77] [03:59.45]When the foggy sun had risen [04:00.97]And the mist had cleared away [04:02.39]All around her wrapped in snowdrift [04:04.24]There the open country lay [04:06.11] [04:06.88]She was tired her limbs were frozen [04:09.35]And the roads had cut her feet [04:11.23]But there came no flowery gardens [04:13.66] [04:14.19]Her poor tearful eyes to greet [04:16.05] [04:16.88]She had found the road by asking [04:19.24]She had learnt the way to go [04:21.11]She had found the cruel meadow [04:22.60] [04:23.19]It was wrapped in cruel snow [04:25.89]Not a buttercup or daisy not a single verdant blade [04:29.06]Showed its head above its prison [04:31.21]Then she knelt her down and prayed [04:34.13] [04:36.74]With her eyes up cast to heaven [04:38.47]Down she sank upon the ground [04:40.38]And she prayed to God to tell her [04:42.95]Where the roses might be found [04:45.09] [04:45.83]Then the cold blast numbed her senses [04:49.59]And her sight grew strangely dim [04:52.21]And a sudden awful tremor seem to seize her every limb [04:55.61] [04:56.42]Oh rose she moaned good Jesus [05:00.97]Just a rose to take to Bill [05:03.48] [05:04.64]And as she prayed a chariot came thundering down the hill [05:07.58] [05:08.08]A lady sat there toying with a red rose rare and sweet [05:12.63]As she passed she flung it from her [05:15.48]And it fell at Nelly's feet [05:17.24] [05:18.69]Just a word her lord had spoken caused her ladyship to fret [05:21.84] [05:22.52]And the rose had been his present [05:24.11]So she flung it in a pet [05:25.56] [05:26.13]But the poor half blinded Nelly [05:27.78]Thought it had fallen from the skies [05:29.47] [05:29.98]And she murmured [05:31.06]Thank you Jesus as she clasped the dainty prize [05:35.15] [05:37.91]Lo that night from out the alley did [05:41.06]A child's soul pass away [05:43.60] [05:44.44]From dirt and sin and misery to [05:47.20]Where God's children play [05:48.92] [05:49.48]Lo that night a wild fierce snowstorm [05:52.49]Burst in fury over the land [05:54.89]And at morn they found Nell frozen [05:57.92] [05:58.60]With the red rose in her hand [06:00.59] [06:03.83]Billy's dead and gone to glory [06:05.61] [06:06.18]So has Billy's sister Nell [06:07.72] [06:08.86]Am I bold to say this happened in [06:11.98]The land where angels dwell [06:14.12] [06:14.74]That the children met in heaven after [06:17.65]All their earthly woes [06:19.45] [06:20.18]And that Nelly kissed her brother and said [06:23.27] [06:24.12]Billy here's your rose