章节正文
At best is only a monkey shaved!
Ballad: Only Roses
To a garden full of posies
Cometh one to gather flowers;
And he wanders through its bowers
Toying with the wanton roses,
Who, uprising from their beds,
Hold on high their shameless heads
With their pretty lips a-pouting,
Never doubting - never doubting
That for Cytherean posies
He would gather aught but roses.
In a nest of weeds and nettles,
Lay a violet, half hidden;
Hoping that his glance unbidden
Yet might fall upon her petals.
Though she lived alone, apart,
Hope lay nestling at her heart,
But, alas! the cruel awaking
Set her little heart a-breaking,
For he gathered for his posies
Only roses - only roses!
Ballad: The Rover's Apology
Oh, gentlemen, listen, I pray;
Though I own that my heart has been ranging,
Of nature the laws I obey,
For nature is constantly changing.
The moon in her phases is found,
The time and the wind and the weather,
The months in succession come round,
And you don't find two Mondays together.
Consider the moral, I pray,
Nor bring a young fellow to sorrow,
Who loves this young lady to-day,
And loves that young lady to-morrow!
You cannot eat breakfast all day.
Nor is it the act of a sinner,
When breakfast is taken away,
To turn your attention to dinner;
And it's not in the range of belief
That you could hold him as a glutton,
Who, when he is tired of beef,
Determines to tackle the mutton.
But this I am ready to say,
If it will diminish their sorrow,
I'll marry this lady to-day,
And I'll marry that lady to-morrow!
Ballad: An Appeal
Oh! is there not one maiden breast
Which does not feel the moral beauty
Of making worldly interest
Subordinate to sense of duty?
Who would not give up willingly
All matrimonial ambition
To rescue such a one as I
From his unfortunate position?
Oh, is there not one maiden here,
Whose homely face and bad complexion
Have caused all hopes to disappear
Of ever winning man's affection?
To such a one, if such there be,
I swear by heaven's arch above you,
If you will cast your eyes on me, -
However plain you be - I'll love you!
Ballad: The Reward Of Merit
DR. BELVILLE was regarded as the CRICHTON of his age:
His tragedies were reckoned much too thoughtful for the stage;
His poems held a noble rank, although it's very true
That, being very proper, they were read by very few.
He was a famous Painter, too, and shone upon the "line,"
And even MR. RUSKIN came and worshipped at his shrine;
But, alas, the school he followed was heroically high -
The kind of Art men rave about, but very seldom buy;
And everybody said
"How can he be repaid -
This very great - this very good - this very gifted man?"
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!
He was a great Inventor, and discovered, all alone,
A plan for making everybody's fortune but his own;
For, in business, an Inventor's little better than a fool,
And my highly-gifted friend was no exception to the rule.
His poems - people read them in the Quarterly Reviews -
His pictures - they engraved them in the ILLUSTRATED NEWS -
His inventions - they, perhaps, might have enriched him by degrees,
But all his little income went in Patent Office fees;
And everybody said
"How can he be repaid -
This very great - this very good - this very gifted man?"
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!
At last the point was given up in absolute despair,
When a distant cousin died, and he became a millionaire,
With a county seat in Parliament, a moor or two of grouse,
And a taste for making inconvenient speeches in the House!
THEN it flashed upon Britannia that the fittest of rewards
Was, to take him from the Commons and to put him in the Lords!
And who so fit to sit in it, deny it if you can,
As this very great - this very good - this very gifted man?
(Though I'm more than half afraid
That it sometimes may be said
That we never should have revelled in that source of proper pride,
However great his merits - if his cousin hadn't died!)
Ballad: The Magnet And The Churn
A MAGNET hung in a hardware shop,
And all around was a loving crop
Of scissors and needles, nails and knives,
Offering love for all their lives;
But for iron the Magnet felt no whim,
Though he charmed iron, it charmed not him,
From needles and nails and knives he'd turn,
For he'd set his love on a Silver Churn!
His most aesthetic,
Very magnetic
Fancy took this turn -
"If I can wheedle
A knife or needle,
Why not a Silver Churn?"
And Iron and Steel expressed surprise,
The needles opened their well-drilled eyes,
The pen-knives felt "shut up," no doubt,
The scissors declared themselves "cut out,"
The kettles they boiled with rage, 'tis said,
While every nail went off its head,
And hither and thither began to roam,
Till a hammer came up - and drove it home,
While this magnetic
Peripatetic
Lover he lived to learn,
By no endeavour,
Can Magnet ever
Attract a Silver Churn!
Ballad: The Family Fool
Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon,
If you listen to popular rumour;
From morning to night he's so joyous and bright,
And he bubbles with wit and good humour!
He's so quaint and so terse, both in prose and in verse;
Yet though people forgive his transgression,
There are one or two rules that all Family Fools
Must observe, if they love their profession.
There are one or two rules,
Half-a-dozen, maybe,
That all family fools,
Of whatever degree,
Must observe if they love their profession.
If you wish to succeed as a jester, you'll need
To consider each person's auricular:
What is all right for B would quite scandalise C
(For C is so very particular);
And D may be dull, and E's very thick skull
Is as empty of brains as a ladle;
While F is F sharp, and will cry with a carp,
That he's known your best joke from his cradle!
When your humour they flout,
You can't let yourself go;
And it DOES put you out
When a person says, "Oh!
I have known that old joke from my cradle!"
If your master is surly, from getting up early
(And tempers are short in the morning),
An inopportune joke is enough to provoke
Him to give you, at once, a month's warning.
Then if you refrain, he is at you again,
For he likes to get value for money:
He'll ask then and there, with an insolent stare,
"If you know that you're paid to be funny?"
It adds to the tasks
Of a merryman's place,
When your principal asks,
With a scowl on his face,
If you know that you're paid to be funny?
Comes a Bishop, maybe, or a solemn D.D. -
Oh, beware of his anger provoking!
Better not pull his hair - don't stick pins in his chair;
He won't understand practical joking.
If the jests that you crack have an orthodox smack,
You may get a bland smile from these sages;
But should it, by chance, be imported from France,
Half-a-crown is stopped out of your wages!
It's a general rule,
Though your zeal it may quench,
If the Family Fool
Makes a joke that's TOO French,
Half-a-crown is stopped out of his wages!
Though your head it may rack with a bilious attack,
And your senses with toothache you're losing,
And you're mopy and flat - they don't fine you for that
If you're properlyquaint and amusing!
Though your wife ran away with a soldier that day,
And took with her your trifle of money;
Bless your heart, they don't mind - they're exceedingly kind -
They don't blame you - as long as you're funny!
It's a comfort to feel
If your partner should flit,
Though YOU suffer a deal,
THEY don't mind it a bit -
They don't blame you - so long as you're funny!
Ballad: Sans Souci
I cannot tell what this love may be
That cometh to all but not to me.
It cannot be kind as they'd imply,
Or why do these gentle ladies sigh?
Ballad: Only Roses
To a garden full of posies
Cometh one to gather flowers;
And he wanders through its bowers
Toying with the wanton roses,
Who, uprising from their beds,
Hold on high their shameless heads
With their pretty lips a-pouting,
Never doubting - never doubting
That for Cytherean posies
He would gather aught but roses.
In a nest of weeds and nettles,
Lay a violet, half hidden;
Hoping that his glance unbidden
Yet might fall upon her petals.
Though she lived alone, apart,
Hope lay nestling at her heart,
But, alas! the cruel awaking
Set her little heart a-breaking,
For he gathered for his posies
Only roses - only roses!
Ballad: The Rover's Apology
Oh, gentlemen, listen, I pray;
Though I own that my heart has been ranging,
Of nature the laws I obey,
For nature is constantly changing.
The moon in her phases is found,
The time and the wind and the weather,
The months in succession come round,
And you don't find two Mondays together.
Consider the moral, I pray,
Nor bring a young fellow to sorrow,
Who loves this young lady to-day,
And loves that young lady to-morrow!
You cannot eat breakfast all day.
Nor is it the act of a sinner,
When breakfast is taken away,
To turn your attention to dinner;
And it's not in the range of belief
That you could hold him as a glutton,
Who, when he is tired of beef,
Determines to tackle the mutton.
But this I am ready to say,
If it will diminish their sorrow,
I'll marry this lady to-day,
And I'll marry that lady to-morrow!
Ballad: An Appeal
Oh! is there not one maiden breast
Which does not feel the moral beauty
Of making worldly interest
Subordinate to sense of duty?
Who would not give up willingly
All matrimonial ambition
To rescue such a one as I
From his unfortunate position?
Oh, is there not one maiden here,
Whose homely face and bad complexion
Have caused all hopes to disappear
Of ever winning man's affection?
To such a one, if such there be,
I swear by heaven's arch above you,
If you will cast your eyes on me, -
However plain you be - I'll love you!
Ballad: The Reward Of Merit
DR. BELVILLE was regarded as the CRICHTON of his age:
His tragedies were reckoned much too thoughtful for the stage;
His poems held a noble rank, although it's very true
That, being very proper, they were read by very few.
He was a famous Painter, too, and shone upon the "line,"
And even MR. RUSKIN came and worshipped at his shrine;
But, alas, the school he followed was heroically high -
The kind of Art men rave about, but very seldom buy;
And everybody said
"How can he be repaid -
This very great - this very good - this very gifted man?"
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!
He was a great Inventor, and discovered, all alone,
A plan for making everybody's fortune but his own;
For, in business, an Inventor's little better than a fool,
And my highly-gifted friend was no exception to the rule.
His poems - people read them in the Quarterly Reviews -
His pictures - they engraved them in the ILLUSTRATED NEWS -
His inventions - they, perhaps, might have enriched him by degrees,
But all his little income went in Patent Office fees;
And everybody said
"How can he be repaid -
This very great - this very good - this very gifted man?"
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!
At last the point was given up in absolute despair,
When a distant cousin died, and he became a millionaire,
With a county seat in Parliament, a moor or two of grouse,
And a taste for making inconvenient speeches in the House!
THEN it flashed upon Britannia that the fittest of rewards
Was, to take him from the Commons and to put him in the Lords!
And who so fit to sit in it, deny it if you can,
As this very great - this very good - this very gifted man?
(Though I'm more than half afraid
That it sometimes may be said
That we never should have revelled in that source of proper pride,
However great his merits - if his cousin hadn't died!)
Ballad: The Magnet And The Churn
A MAGNET hung in a hardware shop,
And all around was a loving crop
Of scissors and needles, nails and knives,
Offering love for all their lives;
But for iron the Magnet felt no whim,
Though he charmed iron, it charmed not him,
From needles and nails and knives he'd turn,
For he'd set his love on a Silver Churn!
His most aesthetic,
Very magnetic
Fancy took this turn -
"If I can wheedle
A knife or needle,
Why not a Silver Churn?"
And Iron and Steel expressed surprise,
The needles opened their well-drilled eyes,
The pen-knives felt "shut up," no doubt,
The scissors declared themselves "cut out,"
The kettles they boiled with rage, 'tis said,
While every nail went off its head,
And hither and thither began to roam,
Till a hammer came up - and drove it home,
While this magnetic
Peripatetic
Lover he lived to learn,
By no endeavour,
Can Magnet ever
Attract a Silver Churn!
Ballad: The Family Fool
Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon,
If you listen to popular rumour;
From morning to night he's so joyous and bright,
And he bubbles with wit and good humour!
He's so quaint and so terse, both in prose and in verse;
Yet though people forgive his transgression,
There are one or two rules that all Family Fools
Must observe, if they love their profession.
There are one or two rules,
Half-a-dozen, maybe,
That all family fools,
Of whatever degree,
Must observe if they love their profession.
If you wish to succeed as a jester, you'll need
To consider each person's auricular:
What is all right for B would quite scandalise C
(For C is so very particular);
And D may be dull, and E's very thick skull
Is as empty of brains as a ladle;
While F is F sharp, and will cry with a carp,
That he's known your best joke from his cradle!
When your humour they flout,
You can't let yourself go;
And it DOES put you out
When a person says, "Oh!
I have known that old joke from my cradle!"
If your master is surly, from getting up early
(And tempers are short in the morning),
An inopportune joke is enough to provoke
Him to give you, at once, a month's warning.
Then if you refrain, he is at you again,
For he likes to get value for money:
He'll ask then and there, with an insolent stare,
"If you know that you're paid to be funny?"
It adds to the tasks
Of a merryman's place,
When your principal asks,
With a scowl on his face,
If you know that you're paid to be funny?
Comes a Bishop, maybe, or a solemn D.D. -
Oh, beware of his anger provoking!
Better not pull his hair - don't stick pins in his chair;
He won't understand practical joking.
If the jests that you crack have an orthodox smack,
You may get a bland smile from these sages;
But should it, by chance, be imported from France,
Half-a-crown is stopped out of your wages!
It's a general rule,
Though your zeal it may quench,
If the Family Fool
Makes a joke that's TOO French,
Half-a-crown is stopped out of his wages!
Though your head it may rack with a bilious attack,
And your senses with toothache you're losing,
And you're mopy and flat - they don't fine you for that
If you're properlyquaint and amusing!
Though your wife ran away with a soldier that day,
And took with her your trifle of money;
Bless your heart, they don't mind - they're exceedingly kind -
They don't blame you - as long as you're funny!
It's a comfort to feel
If your partner should flit,
Though YOU suffer a deal,
THEY don't mind it a bit -
They don't blame you - so long as you're funny!
Ballad: Sans Souci
I cannot tell what this love may be
That cometh to all but not to me.
It cannot be kind as they'd imply,
Or why do these gentle ladies sigh?
- monkey [´mʌŋki]
n.猴子 v.乱弄；胡闹 (初中英语单词) - violet [´vaiələt] n.&a.紫罗兰(的)；紫色 (初中英语单词)
- constantly [´kɔnstəntli] ad.经常地；不断地 (初中英语单词)
- succession [sək´seʃən] n.继任；继承(权) (初中英语单词)
- diminish [di´miniʃ] v.减小，缩小 (初中英语单词)
- maiden [´meidn] n.少女 a.未婚的 (初中英语单词)
- rescue [´reskju:] vt.&n.救援；挽救 (初中英语单词)
- unfortunate [ʌn´fɔ:tʃunit] a.不幸的，运气差的 (初中英语单词)
- reward [ri´wɔ:d] n.&v.报答；报酬；奖赏 (初中英语单词)
- painter [´peintə] n.画家；(油)漆工 (初中英语单词)
- exception [ik´sepʃən] n.例外；反对，异议 (初中英语单词)
- income [´inkʌm] n.收入，所得 (初中英语单词)
- patent [´peitənt, ´pæ-] a.专利的 n.专利品 (初中英语单词)
- absolute [´æbsəlu:t] a.绝对的 n.绝对 (初中英语单词)
- parliament [´pɑ:ləmənt] n.议(国)会 (初中英语单词)
- hither [´hiðə] ad.到此处 (初中英语单词)
- thither [´ðiðə] ad.到那里 a.那边的 (初中英语单词)
- hammer [´hæmə] n.锤子 v.重击 (初中英语单词)
- forgive [fə´giv] vt.原谅，谅解，宽恕 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- humour [´hju:mə] n.幽默，诙谐 (初中英语单词)
- principal [´prinsəpəl] a.主要的 n.负责人 (初中英语单词)
- bishop [´biʃəp] n.主教 (初中英语单词)
- solemn [´sɔləm] a.严肃的；隆重的 (初中英语单词)
- properly [´prɔpəli] ad.适当地；严格地 (初中英语单词)
- trifle [´traifəl] n.琐事，小事；少量 (初中英语单词)
- partner [´pɑ:tnə] n.伙伴 v.同....合作 (初中英语单词)
- tackle [´tækəl] n.用具；装置 vt.处理 (高中英语单词)
- homely [´həumli] a.朴素的；不漂亮的 (高中英语单词)
- thoughtful [´θɔ:tfəl] a.深思的；体贴的 (高中英语单词)
- inventor [in´ventə] n.发明者 (高中英语单词)
- loving [´lʌviŋ] a.爱的，有爱情的 (高中英语单词)
- joyous [´dʒɔiəs] a.充满快乐的 (高中英语单词)
- quaint [kweint] a.离奇的；奇妙的 (高中英语单词)
- refrain [ri´frein] v.抑制；忍住 n.迭句 (高中英语单词)
- beware [bi´weə] v.(用于祈使句)谨防 (高中英语单词)
- exceedingly [ik´si:diŋli] ad.非常地，极度地 (高中英语单词)
- wanton [´wɔntən, ´wɑ:n-] a.顽皮的 n.&vi.荡妇 (英语四级单词)
- worldly [´wə:ldli] a.现世的；世俗的 (英语四级单词)
- winning [´winiŋ] n.&a.胜利(的) (英语四级单词)
- gifted [´giftid] a.有天赋的，有才华的 (英语四级单词)
- magnet [´mægnit] n.磁体；磁石；磁铁 (英语四级单词)
- hardware [´hɑ:dweə] n.五金器皿 (英语四级单词)
- scissors [´sizəz] n.剪刀，剪子 (英语四级单词)
- knives [naivz] knife的复数 (英语四级单词)
- uprising [ʌp´raiziŋ] n.叛乱；起义，暴动 (英语六级单词)
- practicable [´præktikəbəl] a.可实行的；适用的 (英语六级单词)
- inconvenient [,inkən´vi:niənt] a.不方便的 (英语六级单词)
- jester [´dʒestə] n.爱开玩笑的人 (英语六级单词)
- insolent [´insələnt] a.傲慢的；无礼的 (英语六级单词)
- orthodox [´ɔ:θədɔks] a.正统的；正统的；习惯的 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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