William Schwenck Gilbert - More Bab Ballads

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

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 zoëtropes.

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.

“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!”

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.