More Bab Ballads - William Schwenck Gilbert

Oh, listen to the tale of MISTER WILLIAM, if you please,
Whom naughty, naughty judges sent away beyond the seas.
He forged a partys 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 wickednessto see what it was like.

He argued with himself, and said, A spotless man am I;
I cant be more respectable, however hard I try!
For six and thirty years Ive always been as good as gold,
And now for half an hour Ill plan infamy untold!

A baby who is wicked at the early age of one,
And then reformsand dies at thirty-six a spotless son,
Is never, never saddled with his babyhoods 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 dont 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 babyhoodobjecting to be drest
If you leave it to accumulate at compound interest,
For anything you know, may represent, if youre alive,
A burglary or murder at the age of thirty-five.

Still, I wouldnt take advantage of this fact, but be content
With some pardonable follyits a mere experiment.
The greater the temptation to go wrong, the less the sin;
So with something thats particularly tempting Ill begin.

I would not steal a penny, for my incomes very fair
I do not want a pennyI have pennies and to spare
And if I stole a penny from a money-bag or till,
The sin would be enormousthe temptation being nil.

But if I broke asunder all such pettifogging bounds,
And forged a partys Will for (say) Five Hundred Thousand Pounds,
With such an irresistible temptation to a haul,
Of course the sin must be infinitesimally small.

Theres WILSON who is dyinghe has wealth from Stock and rent
If I divert his riches from their natural descent,
Im placed in a position to indulge each little whim.
So he diverted themand they, in turn, diverted him.

Unfortunately, though, by some unpardonable flaw,
Temptation isnt recognized by Britains 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, Its very true,
He aint 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;
Its telling on young WILLIAM, whos reduced to skin and bone
Remember hes 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 hes had.

A burglar or garotter, or, indeed, a common thief
Is very glad to 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 dont seem to suit our WILLIAMS whim,
A boon to other prisonersa punishment to him.
It never was intended that the discipline of gaol
Should dash a convicts 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:
Im very glad you mentioned itit might have been For Death!

Release him with a tickethell be better then, no doubt,
And tell him I apologize.  So MISTER WILLIAMS out.
I hope he will be careful in his manuscripts, Im sure,
And not begin experimentalizing any more.

Im 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 Ive seen, and dangers great Ive run
Im nearly seventy now, and my work is almost done!

Ah!  Ive been young in my time, and Ive played the deuce with men!
Im speaking of ten years pastI was barely sixty then:
My cheeks were mellow and soft, and my eyes were large and sweet,
POLL PINEAPPLES 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 countrys 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 hed tell of the fights at sea in which hed taken a part,
And so LIEUTENANT BELAYE won poor POLL PINEAPPLES heart!

But at length his orders came, and he said one day, said he,
Im 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,
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,
Im sorry to say that Ive 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 gunsuch 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 ageor somebody might declare
That BARNACLES 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!  Theres dirty weather ahead!
(I do not mean that tempests threatened the Hot Cross Bun:
In that case, I dont know whatever we should have done!)

After a fortnights 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 sailors blue array,
To follow the shifting fate of kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.

Its strange to think that I should ever have loved young men,
But Im speaking of ten years pastI was barely sixty then,
And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and age, I trow!
And poor POLL PINEAPPLES eyes have lost their lustre now!