The minstrel smote on the trembling strings
And he chortled a song of war
Of heroes hacking their way to fame
Through rivers and seas of gore
Of headless bodies, of brain protruding,
Of warm and quivering flesh
Till the lord remarked, "Oh chuck it! Chestnuts
Let's have something fresh."
And the minstrel looked at his lord in grief
"Gramercy, my liege," said he
"Would'st thou that I sing of a knight and a dame
And their love 'neath the greenwood tree?"
"No, by my halidane," cried the lord
"Thou drivest me off my chump
These mildewed, fat-headed ditties of thine
Give me the perishing hump.
I give thee a week to learn something newer
I've said it and thou dost know
By Friday next thou wilt either do it
Or take my money and go."

Sad was the minstrel at heart that night
As he sat in his small bedroom
With never a lamp and not even a candle
To lighten his mental gloom
With a grey goose quill and a horn of ink
By the watery moonbeams' light
He sat him down by his casement sill
With an aching breast to write.
Long, long he pondered, but nothing but blots
Appeared on the parchment fair
His muse was on strike, he champed his pen
And ruffled and towsled his hair
But, all in a flash, on his brain there came
An inspiration divine
He started to write, and there, in the silence
A ballad grew line by line.
And when it was finished he took up his harp
And he tickled it pinkety-pong
And sung sotto voce the great prototype
Of the present day music-hall song.

Friday is come and the supper is ended
The lord and his lady are there
And the former commands in a voice of contempt
For the minstrel straightway to appear
And he says, "Thou rememberest, Thou string-tickling varlet
This evening I've ordered of thee
A song that is new - if it's written get on with it
Don't stand there gaping at me
Bear in mind, we are dead off the fly-spotted
Moth-eaten ballads of battle and love
And remember this means an advance to thy screw
Or the unconditional shove."

The minstrel banged the responsive chords
And he twiddled a lum-ti-tum air
And he sang of a night at a town by the sea
And the insects that fed on him there
Then he chanted of cheeses and spouses who jaw
Of tripe, twins and triplets and mothers-in-law
Of the feet of policemen, of landladies' brats
Of dog-bitten lovers, the manners of cats
Of brokers and pawn-shops, false teeth and dyed hair
Of tramps who hate work and of cabmen who swear
About the militia who booze such a lot
Of chaps 'up the pole' and blokes 'off their dot'
And the song concluded, the chords ever mingling
In one majestic strife
With a verselet concerning a lodger who bunked
And a landlord left minus a wife.

At the close of the singing the castle resounded
With clapping and cries of 'encore'
Which didn't leave off till the minstrel had sung them
The 'lodger' verse over once more
And the lord was so pleased that he laughed till his feet ached
And tears trickled all down his cheek
And, true to his promise, he raised the bard's wages
From four-pence to five-pence per week
And they wrote down the words of that ballad on vellum
Today anybody can see 'em
By asking a man who has charge of such things
In a room at the British Museum
And though five hundred years have elapsed
Since the night the first comic lay made a sensation
Our music-hall singers still use the same themes
We are such a conservative nation.