More Bab Ballads(巴布民谣续)

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The Bab Ballads

(More Bab Ballads)

W. S. Gilbert

The Bab Ballads

Ballad: Mister William

Oh, listen to the tale of MISTER WILLIAM, if you please, Whom

naughty, naughty judges sent away beyond the seas. He forged a party's

will, which caused anxiety and strife, Resulting in his getting penal

servitude for life.

He was a kindly goodly man, and naturally prone, Instead of taking

others' gold, to give away his own. But he had heard of Vice, and longed

for only once to strike - To plan ONE little wickedness - to see what it was

like.

He argued with himself, and said, "A spotless man am I; I can't be

more respectable, however hard I try! For six and thirty years I've always

been as good as gold, And now for half an hour I'll plan infamy untold!

"A baby who is wicked at the early age of one, And then reforms - and

dies at thirty-six a spotless son, Is never, never saddled with his

babyhood's defect, But earns from worthy men consideration and respect.

"So one who never revelled in discreditable tricks Until he reached the

comfortable age of thirty-six, May then for half an hour perpetrate a deed

of shame, Without incurring permanent disgrace, or even blame.

"That babies don't commit such crimes as forgery is true, But little sins

develop, if you leave 'em to accrue; And he who shuns all vices as

successive seasons roll, Should reap at length the benefit of so much self-

control.

"The common sin of babyhood - objecting to be drest - If you leave it

to accumulate at compound interest, For anything you know, may

represent, if you're alive, A burglary or murder at the age of thirty-five.

"Still, I wouldn't take advantage of this fact, but be content With some

pardonable folly - it's a mere experiment. The greater the temptation to go

wrong, the less the sin; So with something that's particularly tempting I'll

begin.

"I would not steal a penny, for my income's very fair - I do not want a

penny - I have pennies and to spare - And if I stole a penny from a money-

bag or till, The sin would be enormous - the temptation being NIL.

The Bab Ballads

"But if I broke asunder all such pettifogging bounds, And forged a

party's Will for (say) Five Hundred Thousand Pounds, With such an

irresistible temptation to a haul, Of course the sin must be infinitesimally

small.

"There's WILSON who is dying - he has wealth from Stock and rent -

If I divert his riches from their natural descent, I'm placed in a position to

indulge each little whim." So he diverted them - and they, in turn, diverted

him.

Unfortunately, though, by some unpardonable flaw, Temptation isn't

recognized by Britain's Common Law; Men found him out by some

peculiarity of touch, And WILLIAM got a "lifer," which annoyed him

very much.

For, ah! he never reconciled himself to life in gaol, He fretted and he

pined, and grew dispirited and pale; He was numbered like a cabman, too,

which told upon him so That his spirits, once so buoyant, grew

uncomfortably low.

And sympathetic gaolers would remark, "It's very true, He ain't been

brought up common, like the likes of me and you." So they took him into

hospital, and gave him mutton chops, And chocolate, and arrowroot, and

buns, and malt and hops.

Kind Clergymen, besides, grew interested in his fate, Affected by the

details of his pitiable state. They waited on the Secretary, somewhere in

Whitehall, Who said he would receive them any day they liked to call.

"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.

"He had an ample income, and of course he stands in need Of sherry

with his dinner, and his customary weed; No delicacies now can pass his

gentlemanly lips - He misses his sea-bathing and his continental trips.

"He says the other prisoners are commonplace and rude; He says he

cannot relish uncongenial prison food. When quite a boy they taught him

to distinguish Good from Bad, And other educational advantages he's had.

"A burglar or garotter, or, indeed, a common thief Is very glad to

The Bab Ballads

batten on potatoes and on beef, Or anything, in short, that prison kitchens

can afford, - A cut above the diet in a common workhouse ward.

"But beef and mutton-broth don't seem to suit our WILLIAM'S whim,

A boon to other prisoners - a punishment to him. It never was intended

that the discipline of gaol Should dash a convict's spirits, sir, or make him

thin or pale."

"Good Gracious Me!" that sympathetic Secretary cried, "Suppose in

prison fetters MISTER WILLIAM should have died! Dear me, of course!

Imprisonment for LIFE his sentence saith: I'm very glad you mentioned it

- it might have been For Death!

"Release him with a ticket - he'll be better then, no doubt, And tell him

I apologize." So MISTER WILLIAM'S out. I hope he will be careful in

his manuscripts, I'm sure, And not begin experimentalizing any more.

The Bab Ballads

Ballad: The 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!

I'm speaking of ten years past - I was barely sixty then: My cheeks were

mellow and soft, and my eyes were large and sweet, POLL PINEAPPLE'S

eyes were the standing toast of the Royal Fleet!

A bumboat woman was I, and I faithfully served the ships With apples

and cakes, and fowls, and beer, and halfpenny dips, And beef for the

generous mess, where the officers dine at nights, And fine fresh

peppermint drops for the rollicking midshipmites.

Of all the kind commanders who anchored in Portsmouth Bay, By far

the sweetest of all was kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.' LIEUTENANT

BELAYE commanded the gunboat HOT CROSS BUN, She was seven

and thirty feet in length, and she carried a gun.

With a laudable view of enhancing his country's naval pride, When

people inquired her size, LIEUTENANT BELAYE replied, "Oh, my ship,

my ship is the first of the Hundred and Seventy- ones!" Which meant her

tonnage, but people imagined it meant her guns.

Whenever I went on board he would beckon me down below, "Come

down, Little Buttercup, come" (for he loved to call me so), And he'd tell of

the fights at sea in which he'd taken a part, And so LIEUTENANT

BELAYE won poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S heart!

But at length his orders came, and he said one day, said he, "I'm

ordered to sail with the HOT CROSS BUN to the German Sea." And the

Portsmouth maidens wept when they learnt the evil day, For every

Portsmouth maid loved good LIEUTENANT BELAYE.

And I went to a back back street, with plenty of cheap cheap shops,

The Bab Ballads

And I bought an oilskin hat and a second-hand suit of slops, 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?" 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!"

Yet, 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. And as

he was proud of his gun - such pride is hardly wrong - The Lieutenant was

blazing away at intervals all day long.

They all agreed very well, though at times you heard it said That BILL

had a way of his own of making his lips look red - That JOE looked quite

his age - or somebody might declare 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!)

After a fortnight's cruise, we put into port one day, And off on leave

for a week went kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE, And after a long long

week had passed (and it seemed like a life), LIEUTENANT BELAYE

The Bab Ballads

returned to his ship with a fair young wife!

He up, and he says, says he, "O 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 now my cheeks

are furrowed with grief and age, I trow! And poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S

eyes have lost their lustre now!

The Bab Ballads

Ballad: The Two Ogres

Good children, list, if you're inclined, And wicked children too - This

pretty ballad is designed Especially for you.

Two ogres dwelt in Wickham Wold - Each TRAITS distinctive had:

The younger was as good as gold, The elder was as bad.

A wicked, disobedient son Was JAMES M'ALPINE, and A contrast to

the elder one, Good APPLEBODY BLAND.

M'ALPINE - brutes like him are few - In greediness delights, A

melancholy victim to Unchastened appetites.

Good, well-bred children every day He ravenously ate, - All boys were

fish who found their way Into M'ALPINE'S net:

Boys whose good breeding is innate, Whose sums are always right;

And boys who don't expostulate When sent to bed at night;

And kindly boys who never search The nests of birds of song; And

serious boys for whom, in church, No sermon is too long.

Contrast with JAMES'S greedy haste And comprehensive hand, The

nice discriminating taste Of APPLEBODY BLAND.

BLAND only eats bad boys, who swear - Who CAN behave, but

DON'T - Disgraceful lads who say "don't care," And "shan't," and "can't,"

and "won't."

Who wet their shoes and learn to box, And say what isn't true, Who

bite their nails and jam their frocks, And make long noses too;

Who kick a nurse's aged shin, And sit in sulky mopes; And boys who

twirl poor kittens in Distracting zoetropes.

But JAMES, when he was quite a youth, Had often been to school,

And though so bad, to tell the truth, He wasn't quite a fool.

At logic few with him could vie; To his peculiar sect He could propose

a fallacy With singular effect.

So, when his Mentors said, "Expound - Why eat good children - why?"

Upon his Mentors he would round With this absurd reply:

"I have been taught to love the good - The pure - the unalloyed - And

wicked boys, I've understood, I always should avoid.

The Bab Ballads

"Why do I eat good children - why? Because I love them so!" (But this

was empty sophistry, As your Papa can show.)

Now, though the learning of his friends Was truly not immense, They

had a way of fitting ends By rule of common sense.

"Away, away!" his Mentors cried, "Thou uncongenial pest! A quirk's a

thing we can't abide, A quibble we detest!

"A fallacy in your reply Our intellect descries, Although we don't

pretend to spy Exactly where it lies.

"In misery and penal woes Must end a glutton's joys; And learn how

ogres punish those Who dare to eat good boys.

"Secured by fetter, cramp, and chain, And gagged securely - so - You

shall be placed in Drury Lane, Where only good lads go.

"Surrounded there by virtuous boys, You'll suffer torture wus Than that

which constantly annoys Disgraceful TANTALUS.

("If you would learn the woes that vex Poor TANTALUS, down there,

Pray borrow of Papa an ex- Purgated LEMPRIERE.)

"But as for BLAND who, as it seems, Eats only naughty boys, We've

planned a recompense that teems With gastronomic joys.

"Where wicked youths in crowds are stowed He shall unquestioned

rule, And have the run of Hackney Road Reformatory School!"

The Bab Ballads

Ballad: Little Oliver

EARL JOYCE he was a kind old party Whom nothing ever could put

out, Though eighty-two, he still was hearty, Excepting as regarded gout.

He had one unexampled daughter, The LADY MINNIE-HAHA

JOYCE, Fair MINNIE-HAHA, "Laughing Water," So called from her

melodious voice.

By Nature planned for lover-capture, Her beauty every heart assailed;

The good old nobleman with rapture Observed how widely she prevailed

Aloof from all the lordly flockings Of titled swells who worshipped

her, There stood, in pumps and cotton stockings, One humble lover -

OLIVER.

He was no peer by Fortune petted, His name recalled no bygone age;

He was no lordling coronetted - Alas! he was a simple page!

With vain appeals he never bored her, But stood in silent sorrow by -

He knew how fondly he adored her, And knew, alas! how hopelessly!

Well grounded by a village tutor In languages alive and past, He'd say

unto himself, "Knee-suitor, Oh, do not go beyond your last!"

But though his name could boast no handle, He could not every hope

resign; As moths will hover round a candle, So hovered he about her

shrine.

The brilliant candle dazed the moth well: One day she sang to her Papa

The air that MARIE sings with BOTHWELL In NEIDERMEYER'S

opera.

(Therein a stable boy, it's stated, Devoutly loved a noble dame, Who

ardently reciprocated His rather injudicious flame.)

And then, before the piano closing (He listened coyly at the door), She

sang a song of her composing - I give one verse from half a score:

BALLAD

Why, pretty page, art ever sighing? Is sorrow in thy heartlet lying?

Come, set a-ringing Thy laugh entrancing, And ever singing And ever

dancing. Ever singing, Tra! la! la! Ever dancing, Tra! la! la! Ever singing,

ever dancing, Ever singing, Tra! la! la!

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TheBabBallads1TheBabBallads(MoreBabBallads)W.S.GilbertTheBabBallads2Ballad:MisterWilliamOh,listentothetaleofMISTERWILLIAM,ifyouplease,Whomnaughty,naughtyjudgessentawaybeyondtheseas.Heforgedaparty'swill,whichcausedanxietyandstrife,Resultinginhisgettingpenalservitudeforlife.Hewasakindlygoodlyman,andna...

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