Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs Part 12

Gentle sir, my heart is frolicsome and free-- (Hey but he's doleful, willow, willow waly!) n.o.body I care for comes a-courting me-- Hey, willow waly O!

n.o.body I care for Comes a-courting--therefore, Hey, willow waly O!

HE.

Prithee, pretty maiden, will you marry me?

(Hey, but I'm hopeful, willow, willow waly!) I may say, at once, I'm a man of propertee Hey, willow waly O!

Money, I despise it, But many people prize it, Hey, willow waly O!

SHE.

Gentle sir, although to marry I design-- (Hey, but I'm hopeful, willow, willow waly!) As yet I do not know you, and so I must decline.

Hey, willow waly O!

To other maidens go you-- As yet I do not know you, Hey, willow waly O!

THE USHER'S CHARGE.

Now, Jurymen, hear my advice-- All kinds of vulgar prejudice I pray you set aside: With stern judicial frame of mind, From bias free of every kind, This trial must be tried!

Oh, listen to the plaintiff's case: Observe the features of her face-- The broken-hearted bride!

Condole with her distress of mind: From bias free of every kind, This trial must be tried!

And when amid the plaintiff's shrieks, The ruffianly defendant speaks-- Upon the other side; What _he_ may say you needn't mind-- From bias free of every kind, This trial must be tried!

KING GOODHEART.

There lived a King, as I've been told, In the wonder-working days of old, When hearts were twice as good as gold, And twenty times as mellow.

Good temper triumphed in his face, And in his heart he found a place For all the erring human race And every wretched fellow.

When he had Rhenish wine to drink It made him very sad to think That some, at junket or at jink, Must be content with toddy.

He wished all men as rich as he (And he was rich as rich could be), So to the top of every tree Promoted everybody.

Amba.s.sadors cropped up like hay, Prime Ministers and such as they Grew like asparagus in May, And Dukes were three a penny.

Lord Chancellors were cheap as sprats.

And Bishops in their shovel hats Were plentiful as tabby cats-- If possible, too many.

On every side Field-Marshals gleamed, Small beer were Lords Lieutenant deemed With Admirals the ocean teemed All round his wide dominions; And Party Leaders you might meet In twos and threes in every street Maintaining, with no little heat, Their various opinions.

That King, although no one denies His heart was of abnormal size, Yet he'd have acted otherwise If he had been acuter.

The end is easily foretold, When every blessed thing you hold Is made of silver, or of gold, You long for simple pewter.

When you have nothing else to wear But cloth of gold and satins rare, For cloth of gold you cease to care-- Up goes the price of shoddy.

In short, whoever you may be, To this conclusion you'll agree, When every one is somebodee, Then no one's anybody!

THE TANGLED SKEIN.

Try we life long, we can never Straighten out life's tangled skein, Why should we, in vain endeavor, Guess and guess and guess again?

Life's a pudding full of plums; Care's a canker that benumbs.

Wherefore waste our elocution On impossible solution?

Life's a pleasant inst.i.tution, Let us take it as it comes!

Set aside the dull enigma, We shall guess it all too soon; Failure brings no kind of stigma-- Dance we to another tune!

String the lyre and fill the cup, Lest on sorrow we should sup.

Hop and skip to Fancy's fiddle, Hands across and down the middle-- Life's perhaps the only riddle That we shrink from giving up!

GIRL GRADUATES.

They intend to send a wire To the moon; And they'll set the Thames on fire Very soon; Then they learn to make silk purses With their rigs From the ears of Lady Circe's Piggy-wigs.

And weazels at their slumbers They'll trepan; To get sunbeams from cu_c.u.m_bers They've a plan.

They've a firmly rooted notion They can cross the Polar Ocean, And they'll find Perpetual Motion If they can!

These are the phenomena That every pretty domina Hopes that we shall see At this Universitee!

As for fashion, they forswear it, So they say, And the circle--they will square it Some fine day; Then the little pigs they're teaching For to fly; And the n.i.g.g.e.rs they'll be bleaching Bye and bye!

Each newly joined aspirant To the clan Must repudiate the tyrant Known as Man; They mock at him and flout him, For they do not care about him, And they're "going to do without him"

If they can!

These are the phenomena That every pretty domina Hopes that we shall see At this Universitee!

THE APE AND THE LADY.

A lady fair, of lineage high, Was loved by an Ape, in the days gone by-- The Maid was radiant as the sun, The Ape was a most unsightly one-- So it would not do-- His scheme fell through; For the Maid, when his love took formal shape, Expressed such terror At his monstrous error, That he stammered an apology and made his 'scape, The picture of a disconcerted Ape.

With a view to rise in the social scale, He shaved his bristles, and he docked his tail, He grew moustachios, and he took his tub, And he paid a guinea to a toilet club.

But it would not do, The scheme fell through-- For the Maid was Beauty's fairest Queen With golden tresses, Like a real princess's, While the Ape, despite his razor keen, Was the apiest Ape that ever was seen!

He bought white ties, and he bought dress suits, He crammed his feet into bright tight boots, And to start his life on a brand-new plan, He christened himself Darwinian Man!

But it would not do.

The scheme fell through-- For the Maiden fair, whom the monkey craved, Was a radiant Being, With a brain far-seeing-- While a Man, however well-behaved, At best is only a monkey shaved!