William Schwenck Gilbert - More Bab Ballads

Mocassins decked his graceful legs,
His eyes were black, and round as eggs,
And on his neck, instead of beads,
Hung several Catawampous seeds.

“Ho, ho!” he said, “thou pale-faced one,
Poor offspring of an Eastern sun,
You’ve never seen the Red Man skip
Upon the banks of Mississip!”

To say that BAILEY oped his eyes
Would feebly paint his great surprise—
To say it almost made him die
Would be to paint it much too high.

But why should I ransack my head
To tell you all that Indian said;
We’ll let the Indian man take wing,—
’Tis not of him I’m going to sing.

Come, come, I say, that’s quite enough
Of this absurd disjointed stuff;
Now let’s get on to that affair
About LIEUTENANT-COLONEL FLARE.

The earth has armies plenty,
And semi-warlike bands,
I dare say there are twenty
In European lands;
But, oh! in no direction
You’d find one to compare
In brotherly affection
With that of COLONEL FLARE.

His soldiers might be rated
As military Pearls.
As unsophisticated
As pretty little girls!
They never smoked or ratted,
Or talked of Sues or Polls;
The Sergeant-Major tatted,
The others nursed their dolls.

He spent his days in teaching
These truly solemn facts;
There’s little use in preaching,
Or circulating tracts.
(The vainest plan invented
For stifling other creeds,
Unless it’s supplemented
With charitable deeds .)

He taught his soldiers kindly
To give at Hunger’s call:
“Oh, better far give blindly,
Than never give at all!
Though sympathy be kindled
By Imposition’s game,
Oh, better far be swindled
Than smother up its flame!”

His means were far from ample
For pleasure or for dress,
Yet note this bright example
Of single-heartedness:
Though ranking as a Colonel,
His pay was but a groat,
While their reward diurnal
Was—each a five-pound note.

Moreover,—this evinces
His kindness, you’ll allow,—
He fed them all like princes,
And lived himself on cow.
He set them all regaling
On curious wines, and dear,
While he would sit pale-ale-ing,
Or quaffing ginger-beer.

Then at his instigation
(A pretty fancy this)
Their daily pay and ration
He’d take in change for his;
They brought it to him weekly,
And he without a groan,
Would take it from them meekly
And give them all his own!

Though not exactly knighted
As knights, of course, should be,
Yet no one so delighted
In harmless chivalry.
If peasant girl or ladye
Beneath misfortunes sank,
Whate’er distinctions made he,
They were not those of rank.

No maiden young and comely
Who wanted good advice
(However poor or homely)
Need ask him for it twice.
He’d wipe away the blindness
That comes of teary dew;
His sympathetic kindness
No sort of limit knew.

He always hated dealing
With men who schemed or planned;
A person harsh—unfeeling—
The Colonel could not stand.
He hated cold, suspecting,
Official men in blue,
Who pass their lives detecting
The crimes that others do.

For men who’d shoot a sparrow,
Or immolate a worm
Beneath a farmer’s harrow,
He could not find a term.
Humanely, ay, and knightly
He dealt with such an one;
He took and tied him tightly,
And blew him from a gun.

The earth has armies plenty,
And semi-warlike bands,
I’m certain there are twenty
In European lands;
But, oh! in no direction
You’d find one to compare
In brotherly affection
With that of COLONEL FLARE.

MR. BLAKE was a regular out-and-out hardened sinner,
Who was quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak,
He was in the habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a glass of grog on a Sunday after dinner,
And seldom thought of going to church more than twice or—if Good Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in it—three times a week.

He was quite indifferent as to the particular kinds of dresses
That the clergyman wore at church where he used to go to pray,
And whatever he did in the way of relieving a chap’s distresses,
He always did in a nasty, sneaking, underhanded, hole-and-corner sort of way.

I have known him indulge in profane, ungentlemanly emphatics,
When the Protestant Church has been divided on the subject of the proper width of a chasuble’s hem;
I have even known him to sneer at albs—and as for dalmatics,
Words can’t convey an idea of the contempt he expressed for them.

He didn’t believe in persons who, not being well off themselves, are obliged to confine their charitable exertions to collecting money from wealthier people,
And looked upon individuals of the former class as ecclesiastical hawks;
He used to say that he would no more think of interfering with his priest’s robes than with his church or his steeple,
And that he did not consider his soul imperilled because somebody over whom he had no influence whatever, chose to dress himself up like an exaggerated GUY FAWKES.

This shocking old vagabond was so unutterably shameless
That he actually went a-courting a very respectable and pious middle-aged sister, by the name of BIGGS.
She was a rather attractive widow, whose life as such had always been particularly blameless;
Her first husband had left her a secure but moderate competence, owing to some fortunate speculations in the matter of figs.

She was an excellent person in every way—and won the respect even of MRS. GRUNDY,
She was a good housewife, too, and wouldn’t have wasted a penny if she had owned the Koh-i-noor.
She was just as strict as he was lax in her observance of Sunday,
And being a good economist, and charitable besides, she took all the bones and cold potatoes and broken pie-crusts and candle-ends (when she had quite done with them), and made them into an excellent soup for the deserving poor.

I am sorry to say that she rather took to BLAKE—that outcast of society,
And when respectable brothers who were fond of her began to look dubious and to cough,
She would say, “Oh, my friends, it’s because I hope to bring this poor benighted soul back to virtue and propriety,
And besides, the poor benighted soul, with all his faults, was uncommonly well off.

And when MR. BLAKE’S dissipated friends called his attention to the frown or the pout of her,
Whenever he did anything which appeared to her to savour of an unmentionable place,
He would say that “she would be a very decent old girl when all that nonsense was knocked out of her,”
And his method of knocking it out of her is one that covered him with disgrace.

She was fond of going to church services four times every Sunday, and, four or five times in the week, and never seemed to pall of them,
So he hunted out all the churches within a convenient distance that had services at different hours, so to speak;
And when he had married her he positively insisted upon their going to all of them,
So they contrived to do about twelve churches every Sunday, and, if they had luck, from twenty-two to twenty-three in the course of the week.