W. S. Gilbert

“ To lacerate poor Peter Gray vindictively you swore;
I told you if you used that blunted axe you'd rue the day,
And so you will, you monster, for I'll marry Peter Gray!"
[And so she did.]
[Pg 286]
SORRY HER LOT
Sorry her lot who loves too well,
Heavy the heart that hopes but vainly,
Sad are the sighs that own the spell
Uttered by eyes that speak too plainly;
Heavy the sorrow that bows the head
When Love is alive and Hope is dead!
Sad is the hour when sets the Sun—
Dark is the night to Earth's poor daughters,
When to the ark the wearied one
Flies from the empty waste of waters! ”

“ The oysters at his feet aside impatiently he shoved,
For turtle and his mother were the only things he loved.
And Somers sighed in sorrow as he settled in the south,
For the thought of Peter's oysters brought the water to his mouth.
He longed to lay him down upon the shelly bed, and stuff:
He had often eaten oysters, but had never had enough.
How they wished an introduction to each other they had had
When on board the Ballyshannon! And it drove them nearly mad
To think how very friendly with each other they might get,
If it wasn't for the arbitrary rule of etiquette! ”

“ Then the whole world beside
Were not too wide
To hold my wealth of love—
Were I thy bride!
Upon thy breast
My loving head would rest,
As on her nest
The tender turtle-dove—
Were I thy bride!
This heart of mine
Would be one heart with thine,
And in that shrine
Our happiness would dwell—
Were I thy bride!
[Pg 375]
And all day long
Our lives should be a song:
No grief, no wrong
Should make my heart rebel—
Were I thy bride! ”

“ No soul could discover a reason at all
For marrying Timothy rather than Paul;
Though all could have offered good reasons, on oath,
Against marrying either—or marrying both.
They were equally wealthy and equally old,
They were equally timid and equally bold;
They were equally tall as they stood in their shoes—
Between them, in fact, there was nothing to choose.
Had I been young Emily, I should have said,
"You're both much too old for a pretty young maid,
Threescore at the least you are verging upon";
But I wasn't young Emily. Let us get on. ”

“ PART II
"Tell me, Henry Wadsworth, Alfred, Poet Close, or Mister Tupper,
Do you write the bonbon mottoes my Elvira pulls at supper?"
But Henry Wadsworth smiled, and said he had not had that honour;
And Alfred, too, disclaimed the words that told so much upon her.
"Mister Martin Tupper, Poet Close, I beg of you inform us";
But my question seemed to throw them both into a rage enormous.
Mister Close expressed a wish that he could only get anigh to me.
And Mister Martin Tupper sent the following reply to me:—
"A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit." ”

“ Comes the cheated maid—
Though the tempest lower,
Rain and cloud will fade!
Take, O maid, these posies:
Though thy beauty rare
Shame the blushing roses,
They are passing fair!
Wear the flowers till they fade;
Happy be thy life, O maid!
O'er the season vernal,
Time may cast a shade;
Sunshine, if eternal,
Makes the roses fade:
Time may do his duty;
Let the thief alone—
Winter hath a beauty
That is all his own.
Fairest days are sun and shade:
Happy be thy life, O maid! ”

“ At any time, I only had to cry for it!
Once, if I dared to weep, the bottle lacking,
My blubbering involved a serious smacking!
"We grew up in the usual way—my friend,
My foster-brother, daily growing thinner,
While gradually I began to mend,
And thrived amazingly on double dinner.
And every one, besides my foster-mother,
Believed that either of us was the other.
"I came into his wealth—I bore his name,
I bear it still—his property I squandered—
I mortgaged everything—and now (oh, shame!)
Into a Somers Town shake-down I've wandered!
I am no Paley—no Vollaire—it's true, my boy! ”

“ For nature is constantly changing.
The moon in her phases is found,
The time and the wind and the weather,
The months in succession come round,
And you don't find two Mondays together.
Consider the moral, I pray,
Nor bring a young fellow to sorrow,
Who loves this young lady to-day,
And loves that young lady to-morrow!
You cannot eat breakfast all day,
Nor is it the act of a sinner,
When breakfast is taken away,
To turn your attention to dinner;
[Pg 137]
And it's not in the range of belief
That you could hold him as a glutton,
Who, when he is tired of beef,
Determines to tackle the mutton. ”

“ Then the air with love is laden;
Every flower is a rose,
Every goose becomes a swan,
Every kind of trouble goes
Where the last year's snows have gone;
Sunlight takes the place of shade
When you marry merry maid! ”

“ Treat not my offer, sir, with scorn,
I'm wealthy though I'm lowly born."
"Young sir," the aged scholar said,
"I never thought you meant to wed:
Engrossed completely with my books,
I little noticed lovers' looks.
I've lived so long away from man,
I do not know of any plan
By which to test a lover's worth,
Except, perhaps, the test of birth.
I've half forgotten in this wild
A father's duty to his child. ”

“ Ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho!
Time's teetotum,
If you spin it,
Give its quotum
Once a minute:
I'll go bail
You hit the nail,
And if you fail
The deuce is in it!
[Pg 488]
You grow up, and you discover
What it is to be a lover.
Some young lady is selected—
Poor, perhaps, but well-connected,
Whom you hail (for Love is blind)
As the Queen of Fairy-kind.
Though she's plain—perhaps unsightly,
Makes her face up—laces tightly,
In her form your fancy traces
All the gifts of all the graces.
Rivals none the maiden woo,
So you take her and she takes you! ”

“ You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no
wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor, and
you've needles and pins from your soles to your
shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg's
asleep, and you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on
your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish
tongue, and a thirst that's intense, and a general sense
that you haven't been sleeping in clover;
But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last, and
the night has been long—ditto, ditto my song—and
thank goodness they're both of them over! ”

“ And then, perhaps, he'd show how he himself performed the trick,
And illustrate his meaning with a poppy and a stick.
Or, if it rained, the little maid would stop at home, and look
At his favourable notices, all pasted in a book,
And then her cheek would flush—her swimming eyes would dance with joy
In a glow of admiration at the prowess of her boy.
[Pg 282]
One summer eve, at supper-time, the gentle Gilbert said
(As he helped his pretty Annie to a slice of collared head) ,
"This collared head reminds me that to-morrow is the day
When I decapitate your former lover, Peter Gray." ”

“ What time the poet hath hymned
The writhing maid, lithe-limbed,
Quivering on amaranthine asphodel,
How can he paint her woes,
Knowing, as well he knows,
That all can be set right with calomel?
When from the poet's plinth
The amorous colocynth
Yearns for the aloe, faint with rapturous thrills,
How can he hymn their throes
Knowing, as well he knows,
That they are only uncompounded pills?
Is it, and can it be,
Nature hath this decree,
Nothing poetic in the world shall dwell?
Or that in all her works
Something poetic lurks,
Even in colocynth and calomel?
[Pg 446]
THE FAIRY CURATE ”

“ He up, and he says, says he, "Oh, crew of the Hot Cross Bun,
Here is the wife of my heart, for the Church has made us one!"
And as he uttered the word, the crew went out of their wits,
And all fell down in so many separate fainting fits.
And then their hair came down, or off, as the case might be,
And lo! the rest of the crew were simple girls, like me,
Who all had fled from their homes in a sailor's blue array,
To follow the shifting fate of kind Lieutenant Belaye!
It's strange to think that I should ever have loved young men,
But I'm speaking of ten years past—I was barely sixty then ”

“ And Peter thought a foolish tack he must have gone upon
In making the acquaintance of a friend of Robinson.
At first they didn't quarrel very openly, I've heard;
They nodded when they met, and now and then exchanged a word:
The word grew rare, and rarer still the nodding of the head,
And when they meet each other now, they cut each other dead.
To allocate the island they agreed by word of mouth,
And Peter takes the north again, and Somers takes the south;
And Peter has the oysters, which he loathes with horror grim,
And Somers has the turtle—turtle disagrees with him. ”

“ When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery,
In short, when I've a smattering of elementary strategy,
You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee—
For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century.
But still in learning vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral! ”

“ And bids the world good cheer.
The little ones hail the festive King—
No thought can make them sad;
Their laughter comes with a sounding ring.
They clap and crow like mad!
They only see in the humbug old
A holiday every year,
And handsome gifts, and joys untold,
And unaccustomed cheer.
[Pg 510]
The old ones, palsied, blear, and hoar,
Their breasts in anguish beat—
They've seen him seventy times before,
How well they know the cheat!
They've seen that ghastly pantomime,
They've felt its blighting breath,
They know that rollicking Christmas-time
Meant cold and want and death ”

“ For though when Captain Capel sank
The Mermen drawn in double rank
Gave him a hearty hail;
Yet when secure of Captain Cleggs,
They cut off both his lovely legs,
And gave him such a tail!
[Pg 277]
When Captain Cleggs returned aboard,
His blithesome crew convulsive roar'd,
To see him altered so.
The Admiralty did insist
That he upon the Half-pay list
Immediately should go.
In vain declared the poor old salt,
"It's my misfortune—not my fault,"
With tear and trembling lip—
In vain poor Capel begged and begged—
"A man must be completely legged
Who rules a British ship." ”

“ What deep delight from sources trite inventive humour coaxes,
That pain and trouble brew
For every one but you!
Gunpowder placed inside its waist improves a mild Havanah,
Its unexpected flash
Burns eyebrows and moustache;
When people dine no kind of wine beats ipecacuanha,
But common sense suggests
You keep it for your guests—
Then naught annoys the organ boys like throwing red-hot coppers,
And much amusement bides
In common butter-slides:
And stringy snares across the stairs cause unexpected croppers. ”

“ A little Peter'll be on view;
And that (if people tell me true)
Is like to happen soon.
[Pg 381]
THE GHOSTS' HIGH NOON
When the night wind howls in the chimney cowls, and the bat in the moonlight flies,
And inky clouds, like funeral shrouds, sail over the midnight skies—
When the footpads quail at the night-bird's wail, and black dogs bay the moon,
Then is the spectres' holiday—then is the ghosts' high noon! ”

“ That ship had a grapple with three iron spikes,—
It's lowered, and, ha! on a something it strikes!
They haul it aboard with a British "heave-ho!"
And what it has fished up the drawing will show.
There was Wilson, and Parker, and Tomlinson, too—
(The first was the captain, the others the crew) —
As lively and spry as a Malabar ape,
Quite pleased and surprised at their happy escape.
And Alum, brave fellow, who stood in the fore,
And never expected to look on them more,
Was really delighted to see them again,
For the truly courageous are truly humane. ”

“ Now take, for example, my case:
I've a bright intellectual brain—-
In all London city
There's no one so witty—
I've thought so again and again.
[Pg 459]
I've a highly intelligent face—
My features can not be denied—
But, whatever I try, sir,
I fail in—and why, sir?
I'm modesty personified!
As a poet, I'm tender and quaint—
I've passion and fervour and grace—
From Ovid and Horace
To Swinburne and Morris,
They all of them take a back place.
Then I sing and I play and I paint;
Though none are accomplished as I
To say so were treason:
You ask me the reason?
I'm diffident, modest, and shy! ”

“ Was far less like a hatchet than a dissipated saw.
And Annie said, "O Gilbert, dear, I do not understand
Why ever you are injuring that hatchet in your hand?"
He said, "It is intended for to lacerate and flay
The neck of that unmitigated villain Peter Gray!"
"Now, Gilbert," Annie answered, "wicked headsman just beware—
I won't have Peter tortured with that horrible affair;
If you attempt to flay him, you will surely rue the day."
But Gilbert said, "Oh, shall I?" which was just his nasty way. ”

“ They crow binomial theorem,
With views (it seems absurd to us)
On differential calculus.
But though a babe, as I have said,
Is born with learning in his head,
He must forget it, if he can,
Before he calls himself a man.
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 ”