William Schwenck Gilbert - More Bab Ballads

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!

He skipped for joy like little muttons,
He danced like Esmeralda’s kid.
(She did not mean a boy in buttons,
Although he fancied that she did.)

Poor lad! convinced he thus would win her,
He wore out many pairs of soles;
He danced when taking down the dinner—
He danced when bringing up the coals.

He danced and sang (however laden)
With his incessant “Tra! la! la!”
Which much surprised the noble maiden,
And puzzled even her Papa.

He nourished now his flame and fanned it,
He even danced at work below.
The upper servants wouldn’t stand it,
And BOWLES the butler told him so.

At length on impulse acting blindly,
His love he laid completely bare;
The gentle Earl received him kindly
And told the lad to take a chair.

“Oh, sir,” the suitor uttered sadly,
“Don’t give your indignation vent;
I fear you think I’m acting madly,
Perhaps you think me insolent?”

The kindly Earl repelled the notion;
His noble bosom heaved a sigh,
His fingers trembled with emotion,
A tear stood in his mild blue eye:

For, oh! the scene recalled too plainly
The half-forgotten time when he,
A boy of nine, had worshipped vainly
A governess of forty-three!

“My boy,” he said, in tone consoling,
“Give up this idle fancy—do—
The song you heard my daughter trolling
Did not, indeed, refer to you.

“I feel for you, poor boy, acutely;
I would not wish to give you pain;
Your pangs I estimate minutely,—
I, too, have loved, and loved in vain.

“But still your humble rank and station
For MINNIE surely are not meet”—
He said much more in conversation
Which it were needless to repeat.

Now I’m prepared to bet a guinea,
Were this a mere dramatic case,
The page would have eloped with MINNIE,
But, no—he only left his place.

The simple Truth is my detective,
With me Sensation can’t abide;
The Likely beats the mere Effective,
And Nature is my only guide.

A proud Pasha was BAILEY BEN,
His wives were three, his tails were ten;
His form was dignified, but stout,
Men called him “Little Roundabout.”

Pale Pilgrims came from o’er the sea
To wait on PASHA BAILEY B.,
All bearing presents in a crowd,
For B. was poor as well as proud.

They brought him onions strung on ropes,
And cold boiled beef, and telescopes,
And balls of string, and shrimps, and guns,
And chops, and tacks, and hats, and buns.

They brought him white kid gloves, and pails,
And candlesticks, and potted quails,
And capstan-bars, and scales and weights,
And ornaments for empty grates.

My tale is not of these—oh no!
I only mention them to show
The divers gifts that divers men
Brought o’er the sea to BAILEY BEN.

A confidant had BAILEY B.,
A gay Mongolian dog was he;
I am not good at Turkish names,
And so I call him SIMPLE JAMES.

A dreadful legend you might trace
In SIMPLE JAMES’S honest face,
For there you read, in Nature’s print,
“A Scoundrel of the Deepest Tint.”

A deed of blood, or fire, or flames,
Was meat and drink to SIMPLE JAMES:
To hide his guilt he did not plan,
But owned himself a bad young man.

And why on earth good BAILEY BEN
(The wisest, noblest, best of men)
Made SIMPLE JAMES his right-hand man
Is quite beyond my mental span.

But there—enough of gruesome deeds!
My heart, in thinking of them, bleeds;
And so let SIMPLE JAMES take wing,—
’Tis not of him I’m going to sing.

Good PASHA BAILEY kept a clerk
(For BAILEY only made his mark),
His name was MATTHEW WYCOMBE COO,
A man of nearly forty-two.

No person that I ever knew
Could “yödel” half as well as COO,
And Highlanders exclaimed, “Eh, weel!”
When COO began to dance a reel.

He used to dance and sing and play
In such an unaffected way,
He cheered the unexciting lives
Of PASHA BAILEY’S lovely wives.

But why should I encumber you
With histories of MATTHEW COO?
Let MATTHEW COO at once take wing,—
’Tis not of COO I’m going to sing.

Let me recall my wandering Muse;
She shall be steady if I choose—
She roves, instead of helping me
To tell the deeds of BAILEY B.

One morning knocked, at half-past eight,
A tall Red Indian at his gate.
In Turkey, as you’re p’raps aware,
Red Indians are extremely rare.