God, I do love ballads

[sheenaghpugh]

lilliburlero has posted before about how utterly damn perfect ballads can sometimes be. I'm researching pirate stuff atm and came across a ballad about John Ward, aka Issuf Reis, one of the many Europeans who rose high with the Barbary corsairs (I was researching a different renegado altogether but you know how one thing leads to another). Most of the Ward ballad is fairly narrative and pedestrian, but at one point someone suggests to him that if he gives up pirating, the King of England might grant him a pardon. And his reply:

Go tell the King of England,
Go tell him this from me,
If he reign king of all the land,
I will reign king at sea.

- and you just want to go yessss!!!! There's a lovely story about when W E Henley first heard Kipling recite "Danny Deever", and was so stirred, he unscrewed his wooden leg and waved it in the air by way of applause. I always think of such moments in reading as wooden leg moments because of that, and the above is a real wooden leg moment for me.

Comments

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

All I can suddenly think of is Betjeman's 'The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel':

More hock, Robbie---where is the seltzer?
Dear boy, pull again at the bell!
They are all little better than cretins,
Though this is the Cadogan Hotel.

Damn it - that will reside in my head until further notice, which may suggest it's time to go home.