Chapter VI

Forward the monster tramps apace,
Like to an elephant running a race;
Like a walking-stick he handles his mace.
Away, too venturous wight, decamp!
In two more strides your skull he smashes;--
One! Gracious goodness! what a stamp!
Two! Ha! the plain beneath him crashes:
Down he goes, full fathoms three.

"How feel ye now," cried Jack, "old chap?
It is plain, I wot, to see
You 're by no means up to trap."
The Giant answered with such a roar,
It was like the Atlantic at war with its shore;
A thousand times worse than the hullaballoo
Of carnivora, fed,
Ere going to bed,
At the Regent's Park, or the Surrey "Zoo."

"So ho! Sir Giant," said Jack, with a bow,
"Of breakfast art thou fain?
For a tit-bit wilt thou broil me now,
An' I let thee out again? "
Gnashing his teeth, and rolling his eyes,
The furious lubber strives to rise.

"Don't you wish you may get it?" our hero cries

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And he drives the pickaxe into his skull:
Giving him thus a belly-full,
If the expression is n't a bull.

VII.

Old Cormoran dead,
Jack cut off his head,
And hired a boat to transport it home.
On the "bumps" of the brute,
At the Institute,
A lecture was read by a Mr. Combe.

Their Worships, the Justices of the Peace,
Called the death of the monster a "happy release:"
Sent for the champion who had drubbed him,
And "Jack the Giant Killer" dubbed him;
And they gave him a sword, and a baldric, whereon
For all who could read them, these versicles shone:--

'THIS IS YE VALYANT CORNISHE MAN
WHO SLEWE YE GIANT CORMORAN"

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JACK SUPRISED ONCE IN THE WAY

I.

Now, as Jack was a lion, and hero of rhymes,
His exploit very soon made a noise in the "Times;"
All over the west
He was _fêted_, caressed,
And to dinners and _soirees_ eternally pressed:
Though't is true Giants did n't move much in society,
And at "twigging" were slow,
Yet they could n't but know
Of a thing that was matter of such notoriety.

Your Giants were famous for _esprit de corps_;
And a huge one, whose name was O'Blunderbore,
From the Emerald Isle, who had waded o'er,
Revenge, "by the pow'rs!" on our hero swore.

II.

Sound beneath a forest oak
Was a beardless warrior dozing,
By a babbling rill, that woke
Echo--not the youth reposing.
What a chance for lady loves
Now to win a "pair of gloves!"

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III.

"Wake, champion, wake, be off, be off;
Heard'st thou not that earthquake cough!
That floundering splash,
That thundering crash?
Awake!--oh, no,
It is no go!"
So sang a little woodland fairy;
'T was O'Blunderbore coming
And the blackguard was humming
The tune of "Paddy Carey."

IV.

Beholding the sleeper,
He open'd each peeper
To about the size of the crown of your hat;
"Oh, oh!" says he,
"Is it clear I see
Hallo! ye young spalpeen, come out o' that."

So he took him up
As ye mote a pup,
Or an impudent varlet about to "pop" him:
"Wake up, ye young baste;
What's this round your waist?
Och! murder! "--I wonder he did n't drop him.

He might, to be sure, have exclaimed "Oh, Law!"
But then he preferred his own _patois_;
And "Murder!" though coarse, was expressive, no doubt,
Inasmuch as the murder was certainly out.

He had pounced upon Jack,
In his cosy bivouack,
And so he made off with him over his back.

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V.

Still was Jack in slumber sunk;
Was he Mesmerised or drunk?

I know not in sooth, but he did not awake
Till, borne through a coppice of briar and brake,
He was roused by the brambles that tore his skin,
Then he woke up and found what a mess he was in
He spoke not a word that his fear might shew,
But said to himself--"What a precious go!"

VI.

Whither was the hero bound,
Napping by the Ogre caught?
Unto Cambrian Taffy's ground
Where adventures fresh he sought.