W. S. Gilbert

“ PART I. At a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supper
One whom I will call Elvira, and we talked of love and Tupper,
Mr. Tupper and the Poets, very lightly with them dealing,
For I’ve always been distinguished for a strong poetic feeling.
Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto,
And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not to.
Then she whispered, “To the ball-room we had better, dear, be walking;
If we stop down here much longer, really people will be talking.” ”

“ Bright eyes, straw hats, bottines that fit amazingly,
A croquêt-bout is planned by all the girls;
And he, consenting, speaks of croquêt praisingly;
But suddenly declines to play at all in it—
The curate fiend has come to take a ball in it!
Next, when at quiet sea-side village, freed
From cares episcopal and ties monarchical,
He grows his beard, and smokes his fragrant weed,
In manner anything but hierarchical—
He sees—and fixes an unearthly stare on it—
That curate’s face, with half a yard of hair on it! ”

“ And she whispered, “Ferdinando, do you really, really love me?”
“Love you?” said I, then I sighed, and then I gazed upon her sweetly—
For I think I do this sort of thing particularly neatly.
“Send me to the Arctic regions, or illimitable azure,
On a scientific goose-chase, with my Coxwell or my Glaisher!
“Tell me whither I may hie me—tell me, dear one, that I may know—
Is it up the highest Andes? down a horrible volcano?”
But she said, “It isn’t polar bears, or hot volcanic grottoes:
Only find out who it is that writes those lovely cracker mottoes!” ”

“ You spoke aloud of Robinson—I happened to be by.
You know him?” “Yes, extremely well.” “Allow me, so do I.”
It was enough: they felt they could more pleasantly get on,
For (ah, the magic of the fact!) they each knew Robinson!
And Mr. Somers’ turtle was at Peter’s service quite,
And Mr. Somers punished Peter’s oyster-beds all night. ”

“ A sorter in the Custom-house, it was his daily road
(The Custom-house was fifteen minutes’ walk from her abode) .
But Alice was a pious girl, who knew it wasn’t wise
To look at strange young sorters with expressive purple eyes;
So she sought the village priest to whom her family confessed,
The priest by whom their little sins were carefully assessed.
“Oh, holy father,” Alice said, “’t would grieve you, would it not,
To discover that I was a most disreputable lot?
Of all unhappy sinners I’m the most unhappy one!” ”

“ And Annie answered, blushing in an interesting way,
“You think, no doubt, I’m sighing for that felon Peter Gray:
That I was his young woman is unquestionably true,
But not since I began a-keeping company with you.”
Then Gilbert, who was irritable, rose and loudly swore
He’d know the reason why if she refused to tell him more;
And she answered (all the woman in her flashing from her eyes)
“You mustn’t ask no questions, and you won’t be told no lies!
“Few lovers have the privilege enjoyed, my dear, by you,
Of chopping off a rival’s head and quartering him too! ”

“ That Barnacle’s long pig-tail was never his own own hair.
Belaye would admit that his men were of no great use to him,
“But, then,” he would say, “there is little to do on a gunboat trim
I can hand, and reef, and steer, and fire my big gun too—
And it is such a treat to sail with a gentle well-bred crew.”
I saw him every day. How the happy moments sped!
Reef topsails! Make all taut! There’s dirty weather ahead!
(I do not mean that tempests threatened the Hot Cross Bun:
In that case, I don’t know whatever we should have done!) ”

“ A Sassenach chief may be bonily built,
He may purchase a sporran, a bonnet, and kilt;
Stick a skeän in his hose—wear an acre of stripes—
But he cannot assume an affection for pipes.
Clonglockety’s pipings all night and all day
Quite frenzied poor Pattison Corby Torbay;
The girls were amused at his singular spleen,
Especially Ellen McJones Aberdeen,
“Macphairson Clonglocketty Angus, my lad,
With pibrochs and reels you are driving me mad.
If you really must play on that cursed affair,
My goodness! play something resembling an air.” ”

“ And came, in course of time, to think that Blake’s own original line of conduct wasn’t so much amiss.
And now that wicked person—that detestable sinner (“Belial Blake” his friends and well-wishers call him for his atrocities) ,
And his poor deluded victim, whom all her Christian brothers dislike and pity so,
Go to the parish church only on Sunday morning and afternoon and occasionally on a week-day, and spend their evenings in connubial fondlings and affectionate reciprocities,
And I should like to know where in the world (or rather, out of it) they expect to go! ”

“ Consider, sir, the hardship of this interesting case:
A prison life brings with it something very like disgrace;
It’s telling on young William, who’s reduced to skin and bone—
Remember he’s a gentleman, with money of his own. ”

“ Am I a man on human plan
Designed, or am I not, Matilda?
But there, my lass, we’ll let that pass!
With anxious love I burn, Matilda.
I want to know if we shall go
To church when I return, Matilda?
Your eyes are red, you bow your head;
It’s pretty clear you thirst, Matilda,
To name the day—What’s that you say?
—“You’ll see me further first,” Matilda?
I can’t mistake the signs you make,
Although you barely speak, Matilda;
Though pure and young, you thrust your tongue
Right in your pretty cheek, Matilda!
p. 175My dear, I fear I hear you sneer—
I do—I’m sure I do, Matilda! ”

“ Had winked upon a sorter, who reciprocated it.
Good Robber Brown he muffled up his anger pretty well:
He said, “I have a notion, and that notion I will tell;
I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits,
And get my gentle wife to chop him into little bits.
p. 119“I’ve studied human nature, and I know a thing or two:
Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do—
A feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall
When she looks upon his body chopped particularly small.” ”

“ And I went to Lieutenant Belaye (and he never suspected me!)
And I entered myself as a chap as wanted to go to sea.
We sailed that afternoon at the mystic hour of one,—
Remarkably nice young men were the crew of the Hot Cross Bun,
I’m sorry to say that I’ve heard that sailors sometimes swear,
But I never yet heard a Bun say anything wrong, I declare.
When Jack Tars meet, they meet with a “Messmate, ho! What cheer?” ”

“ A sailor should be sick at sea,
And not a passenger may sail
Who cannot smoke right through a gale.
A soldier (save by rarest luck)
Is always shot for showing pluck
(That is, if others can be found
With pluck enough to fire a round) .
“How strange!” I said to one I saw;
“You quite upset our every law.
However can you get along
So systematically wrong?”
p. 188“Dear me!” my mad informant said,
“Have you no eyes within your head?
You sneer when you your hat should doff:
Why, we begin where you leave off!
“Your wisest men are very far
Less learned than our babies are!” ”

“ There never was a nobler face!
“Oh, sir,” I said, “a fortune grand
Is yours, by dint of merest chance,—
To sport his brow at second-hand,
To wear his cast-off countenance!
“To rub his eyes whene’er they ache—
To wear his baldness ere you’re old—
To clean his teeth when you awake—
To blow his nose when you’ve a cold!”
p. 158His eyeballs glistened in his eyes—
I sat and watched and smoked my pipe;
“Bravo!” I said, “I recognize
The phrensy of your prototype!”
His scanty hair he wildly tore:
“That’s right,” said I, “it shows your breed.” ”

“ And being a good economist, and charitable besides, she took all the bones and cold potatoes and broken pie-crusts and candle-ends (when she had quite done with them) , and made them into an excellent soup for the deserving poor.
I am sorry to say that she rather took to Blake—that outcast of society,
And when respectable brothers who were fond of her began to look dubious and to cough,
She would say, “Oh, my friends, it’s because I hope to bring this poor benighted soul back to virtue and propriety,”
And besides, the poor benighted soul, with all his faults, was uncommonly well off. ”

“ For that which we call folly here,
Is wisdom in that favoured sphere;
The wisdom we so highly prize
Is blatant folly in their eyes.
A boy, if he would push his way,
Must learn some nonsense every day ”

“ The bet is undecided.
p. 85THE PHANTOM CURATE.
A FABLE. A Bishop once—I will not name his see—
Annoyed his clergy in the mode conventional;
From pulpit shackles never set them free,
And found a sin where sin was unintentional.
All pleasures ended in abuse auricular—
The Bishop was so terribly particular.
Though, on the whole, a wise and upright man,
He sought to make of human pleasures clearances;
And form his priests on that much-lauded plan
Which pays undue attention to appearances. ”

“ So Mister William’s out.
I hope he will be careful in his manuscripts, I’m sure,
And not begin experimentalizing any more.
p. 125THE BUMBOAT WOMAN’S STORY. I’m old, my dears, and shrivelled with age, and work, and grief,
My eyes are gone, and my teeth have been drawn by Time, the Thief!
For terrible sights I’ve seen, and dangers great I’ve run—
I’m nearly seventy now, and my work is almost done!
Ah! I’ve been young in my time, and I’ve played the deuce with men! ”

“ Look thou within thee, ere again ill-using me.
Art thou aware
Of nothing there
Which might abuse thee, as thou art abusing me?
A brain that mourns thine unredeemed rascality?
A soul that weeps at thy threadbare morality? ”

“ And on the floor, with sigh and tear,
He poured the pot of “thruppenny.”
“Oh, Robert, at this very bar
A truth you’ll be discovering,
A good and evil genius are
Around your noddle hovering.
p. 95“They both are here to bid you shun
The other one’s society,
For Total Abstinence is one,
The other, Inebriety.”
He waved his hand—a vapour came—
A wizard Polter reckoned him;
A bogy rose and called his name,
And with his finger beckoned him.
The monster’s salient points to sum,—
His heavy breath was portery:
His glowing nose suggested rum:
His eyes were gin-and-wortery. ”

“ Beneath that fool Sir Berkely’s rule
Became a floating hell.
When first Sir Berkely came aboard
He read a speech to all,
And told them how he’d made a vow
To act on duty’s call.
Then William Lee, he up and said
(The Captain’s coxswain he) ,
“We’ve heard the speech your honour’s made,
And werry pleased we be.
“We won’t pretend, my lad, as how
We’re glad to lose our Reece;
Urbane, polite, he suited quite
The saucy Mantelpiece.
“But if your honour gives your mind
To study all our ways,
With dance and song we’ll jog along
As in those happy days. ”

“ Old heads upon young shoulders we must not expect to find:
We mustn’t be too hard upon these little girlish tricks—
Let’s see—five crimes at half-a-crown—exactly twelve-and-six.”
“Oh, father,” little Alice cried, “your kindness makes me weep,
You do these little things for me so singularly cheap—
Your thoughtful liberality I never can forget;
But, oh! there is another crime I haven’t mentioned yet!
“A pleasant-looking gentleman, with pretty purple eyes,
I’ve noticed at my window, as I’ve sat a-catching flies ”

“ I sink dear mamma ought to know about dat!”
He early determined to marry and wive,
For better or worse
With his elderly nurse—
Which the poor little boy didn’t live to contrive:
His hearth didn’t thrive—
No longer alive,
He died an enfeebled old dotard at five!
p. 58MORAL.
Now, elderly men of the bachelor crew,
With wrinkled hose
And spectacled nose,
Don’t marry at all—you may take it as true
If ever you do
The step you will rue,
For your babes will be elderly—elderly too. ”

“ He went, and found Lieutenant-Colonel Jooles.
“Young Hongree, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
This night we shall attack the English camp:
Be the ‘forlorn hope’ yours—you’ll lead it, sir,
And lead it too with credit, I’ve no doubt.
As every man must certainly be killed
(For you are twenty ’gainst two thousand men) ,
It is not likely that you will return. ”

“ But here, on the Hot Cross Bun, it was “How do you do, my dear?”
When Jack Tars growl, I believe they growl with a big big D—
But the strongest oath of the Hot Cross Buns was a mild “Dear me!”
p. 128Yet, though they were all well-bred, you could scarcely call them slick:
Whenever a sea was on, they were all extremely sick;
And whenever the weather was calm, and the wind was light and fair,
They spent more time than a sailor should on his back back hair.
They certainly shivered and shook when ordered aloft to run,
And they screamed when Lieutenant Belaye discharged his only gun. ”

“ In vain poor Capel begged and begged.
“A man must be completely legged
Who rules a British ship.”
So spake the stern First Lord aloud—
He was a wag, though very proud,
And much rejoiced to say,
“You’re only half a captain now—
And so, my worthy friend, I vow
You’ll only get half-pay!”
p. 149ANNIE PROTHEROE.
A LEGEND OF STRATFORD-LE-BOW. Oh! listen to the tale of little Annie Protheroe.
She kept a small post-office in the neighbourhood of Bow;
She loved a skilled mechanic, who was famous in his day—
A gentle executioner whose name was Gilbert Clay. ”