General John
The bravest names for fire and flames
And all that mortal durst,
Were GENERAL JOHN and PRIVATE JAMES,
Of the Sixty-seventy-first.
GENERAL JOHN was a soldier tried,
A chief of warlike dons;
A haughty stride and a withering pride
Were MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN'S.
A sneer would play on his martial phiz,
Superior birth to show;
"Pish!" was a favourite word of his,
And he often said "Ho! ho!"
FULL-PRIVATE JAMES described might be,
As a man of a mournful mind;
No characteristic trait had he
Of any distinctive kind.
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poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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The Reward of Merit
DR. BELVILLE was regarded as the CRICHTON of his age:
His tragedies were reckoned much too thoughtful for the stage;
His poems held a noble rank, although it's very true
That, being very proper, they were read by very few.
He was a famous Painter, too, and shone upon the "line,"
And even MR. RUSKIN came and worshipped at his shrine;
But, alas, the school he followed was heroically high -
The kind of Art men rave about, but very seldom buy;
And everybody said
"How can he be repaid -
This very great - this very good - this very gifted man?"
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!
He was a great Inventor, and discovered, all alone,
A plan for making everybody's fortune but his own;
For, in business, an Inventor's little better than a fool,
And my highly-gifted friend was no exception to the rule.
His poems - people read them in the Quarterly Reviews -
His pictures - they engraved them in the ILLUSTRATED NEWS -
His inventions - they, perhaps, might have enriched him by degrees,
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poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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The Independent Bee
A hive of bees, as I've heard say,
Said to their Queen one sultry day,
"Please your Majesty's high position,
The hive is full and the weather is warm,
We rather think, with a due submission,
The time has come when we ought to swarm."
Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz.
Up spake their Queen and thus spake she -
"This is a matter that rests with me,
Who dares opinions thus to form?
I'LL tell you when it is time to swarm!"
Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz.
Her Majesty wore an angry frown,
In fact, her Majesty's foot was down -
Her Majesty sulked - declined to sup -
In short, her Majesty's back was up.
Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz.
Her foot was down and her back was up!
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poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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To My Bride (Whoever She May Be)
Oh! little maid! - (I do not know your name
Or who you are, so, as a safe precaution
I'll add) - Oh, buxom widow! married dame!
(As one of these must be your present portion)
Listen, while I unveil prophetic lore for you,
And sing the fate that Fortune has in store for you.
You'll marry soon - within a year or twain -
A bachelor of CIRCA two and thirty:
Tall, gentlemanly, but extremely plain,
And when you're intimate, you'll call him "BERTIE."
Neat - dresses well; his temper has been classified
As hasty; but he's very quickly pacified.
You'll find him working mildly at the Bar,
After a touch at two or three professions,
From easy affluence extremely far,
A brief or two on Circuit - "soup" at Sessions;
A pound or two from whist and backing horses,
And, say three hundred from his own resources.
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poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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An English Girl
A wonderful joy our eyes to bless,
In her magnificent comeliness,
Is an English girl of eleven stone two,
And five foot ten in her dancing shoe!
She follows the hounds, and on she pounds -
The "field" tails off and the muffs diminish -
Over the hedges and brooks she bounds -
Straight as a crow, from find to finish.
At cricket, her kin will lose or win -
She and her maids, on grass and clover,
Eleven maids out - eleven maids in -
(And perhaps an occasional "maiden over").
Go search the world and search the sea,
Then come you home and sing with me
There's no such gold and no such pearl
As a bright and beautiful English girl!
With a ten-mile spin she stretches her limbs,
She golfs, she punts, she rows, she swims -
She plays, she sings, she dances, too,
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poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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Sir Guy the Crusader
Sir GUY was a doughty crusader,
A muscular knight,
Ever ready to fight,
A very determined invader,
And DICKEY DE LION'S delight.
LENORE was a Saracen maiden,
Brunette, statuesque,
The reverse of grotesque,
Her pa was a bagman from Aden,
Her mother she played in burlesque.
A CORYPHEE, pretty and loyal,
In amber and red
The ballet she led;
Her mother performed at the Royal,
LENORE at the Saracen's Head.
Of face and of figure majestic,
She dazzled the cits -
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poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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The Humane Mikado
A more humane Mikado never
Did in Japan exist;
To nobody second,
I'm certainly reckoned
A true philanthropist.
It is my very humane endeavour
To make, to some extent,
Each evil liver
A running river
Of harmless merriment.
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time -
To let the punishment fit the crime -
The punishment fit the crime;
And make each prisoner pent
Unwillingly represent
A source of innocent merriment -
Of innocent merriment!
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poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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The Sorcerer's Song
Oh! my name is JOHN WELLINGTON WELLS -
I'm a dealer in magic and spells,
In blessings and curses,
And ever-filled purses,
In prophecies, witches, and knells!
If you want a proud foe to "make tracks" -
If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax -
You've but to look in
On our resident Djinn,
Number seventy, Simmery Axe.
We've a first-class assortment of magic;
And for raising a posthumous shade
With effects that are comic or tragic,
There's no cheaper house in the trade.
Love-philtre - we've quantities of it;
And for knowledge if any one burns,
We keep an extremely small prophet, a prophet
Who brings us unbounded returns:
For he can prophesy
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poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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The Modern Major-General
I am the very pattern of a modern Major-Gineral,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral;
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical;
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With interesting facts about the square of the hypotenuse,
I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous.
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-Gineral.
I know our mythic history - KING ARTHUR'S and SIR CARADOC'S,
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox;
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of HELIOGABALUS,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous.
I tell undoubted RAPHAELS from GERARD DOWS and ZOFFANIES,
I know the croaking chorus from the "Frogs" of ARISTOPHANES;
Then I can hum a fugue, of which I've heard the music's din afore,
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poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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John and Freddy
JOHN courted lovely MARY ANN,
So likewise did his brother, FREDDY.
FRED was a very soft young man,
While JOHN, though quick, was most unsteady.
FRED was a graceful kind of youth,
But JOHN was very much the strongest.
"Oh, dance away," said she, "in truth,
I'll marry him who dances longest."
JOHN tries the maiden's taste to strike
With gay, grotesque, outrageous dresses,
And dances comically, like
CLODOCHE AND Co., at the Princess's.
But FREDDY tries another style,
He knows some graceful steps and does 'em -
A breathing Poem - Woman's smile -
A man all poesy and buzzem.
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poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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