No man can face with equanimity.
Then let's
rejoice with loud Fal lal
That Nature
wisely does contrive
That every boy and every gal,
That's born into the world alive,
Is either a little Liberal,
Or else a little Conservative!
Fal lal la!
Ballad: The Philosophic Pill
I've
wisdom from the East and from the West,
That's subject to no
academic rule;
You may find it in the jeering of a jest,
Or
distil it from the folly of a fool.
I can teach you with a quip, if I've a mind;
I can trick you into
learning with a laugh;
Oh, winnow all my folly, and you'll find
A grain or two of truth among the chaff!
I can set a braggart quailing with a quip,
The upstart I can
wither with a whim;
He may wear a merry laugh upon his lip,
But his
laughter has an echo that is grim.
When they've offered to the world in merry guise,
Unpleasant truths are swallowed with a will -
For he who'd make his fellow-creatures wise
Should always gild the philosophic pill!
Ballad: Blue Blood
Spurn not the nobly born
With love affected,
Nor treat with
virtuous scorn
The well connected.
High rank involves no shame -
We boast an equal claim
With him of
humble name
To be respected!
Blue blood! Blue blood!
When
virtuous love is sought,
Thy power is naught,
Though dating from the Flood,
Blue blood!
Spare us the bitter pain
Of stern denials,
Nor with low-born disdain
Augment our trials.
Hearts just as pure and fair
May beat in Belgrave Square
As in the lowly air
Of Seven Dials!
Blue blood! Blue blood!
Of what avail art thou
To serve me now?
Though dating from the Flood,
Blue blood!
Ballad: The Judge's Song
When I, good friends, was called to the Bar,
I'd an
appetite fresh and hearty,
But I was, as many young barristers are,
An impecunious party.
I'd a swallow-tail coat of a beautiful blue -
A brief which was brought by a booby -
A couple of shirts and a
collar or two,
And a ring that looked like a ruby!
In Westminster Hall I danced a dance,
Like a semi-despondent fury;
For I thought I should never hit on a chance
Of addressing a British Jury -
But I soon got tired of third-class journeys,
And dinners of bread and water;
So I fell in love with a rich
attorney's
Elderly, ugly daughter.
The rich
attorney, he wiped his eyes,
And replied to my fond professions:
"You shall reap the
reward of your enterprise,
At the Bailey and Middlesex Sessions.
You'll soon get used to her looks," said he,
"And a very nice girl you'll find her -
She may very well pass for forty-three
In the dusk, with a light behind her!"
The rich
attorney was as good as his word:
The briefs came trooping gaily,
And every day my voice was heard
At the Sessions or Ancient Bailey.
All
thieves who could my fees afford
Relied on my orations,
And many a
burglar I've restored
To his friends and his relations.
At length I became as rich as the GURNEYS -
An incubus then I thought her,
So I threw over that rich
attorney's
Elderly, ugly daughter.
The rich
attorney my
character high
Tried
vainly to disparage -
And now, if you please, I'm ready to try
This Breach of Promise of Marriage!
Ballad: When I First Put This Uniform On
When I first put this uniform on,
I said, as I looked in the glass,
"It's one to a million
That any civilian
My figure and form will surpass.
Gold lace has a charm for the fair,
And I've plenty of that, and to spare,
While a lover's professions,
When uttered in Hessians,
Are
eloquent everywhere!"
A fact that I counted upon,
When I first put this uniform on!
I said, when I first put it on,
"It is plain to the veriest dunce
That every beauty
Will feel it her duty
To yield to its glamour at once.
They will see that I'm
freely gold-laced
In a uniform handsome and chaste" -
But the peripatetics
Of long-haired aesthetics,
Are very much more to their taste -
Which I never counted upon
When I first put this uniform on!
Ballad: Solatium
Comes the broken flower -
Comes the cheated maid -
Though the
tempest lower,
Rain and cloud will fade!
Take, O maid, these posies:
Though thy beauty rare
Shame the blushing roses,
They are passing fair!
Wear the flowers till they fade;
Happy be thy life, O maid!
O'er the season vernal,
Time may cast a shade;
Sunshine, if eternal,
Makes the roses fade:
Time may do his duty;
Let the thief alone -
Winter hath a beauty
That is all his own.
Fairest days are sun and shade:
Happy be thy life, O maid!
Ballad: A Nightmare
When you're lying awake with a
dismalheadache, and
repose is
taboo'd by anxiety,
I
conceive you may use any language you choose to
indulge in
without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire - the bedclothes
conspire of usual
slumber to
plunder you:
First your counterpane goes and uncovers your toes, and your sheet
slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles - you feel like mixed pickles, so
terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till
there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick
'em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns and
politely declines to remain at its
usual angle!
Well, you get some
repose in the form of a doze, with hot eyeballs
and head ever aching,
But your slumbering teems with such
horrible dreams that you'd very
much better be waking;
For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a
steamer from Harwich,
Which is something between a large bathing-machine and a very small
second-class carriage;
And you're giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to a party of
friends and relations -
They're a ravenous horde - and they all came on board at Sloane
Square and South Kensington Stations.
And bound on that journey you find your
attorney (who started that
morning from Devon);
He's a bit undersized, and you don't feel surprised when he tells
you he's only eleven.
Well, you're driving like mad with this
singular lad (by the bye
the ship's now a four-wheeler),
And you're playing round games, and he calls you bad names when you
tell him that "ties pay the dealer";
But this you can't stand, so you throw up your hand, and you find
you're as cold as an icicle,
In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks),
crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle:
And he and the crew are on bicycles too - which they've somehow or
other invested in -
And he's telling the tars all the particuLARS of a company he's
interested in -
It's a
scheme of devices, to get at low prices, all goods from
cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors) by treating retailers, as though they
were all vegeTAbles -
You get a good spadesman to plant a small
tradesman (first take off
his boots with a boot-tree),
And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot, and
they'll
blossom and bud like a fruit-tree -
From the greengrocer tree you get grapes and green pea,
cauliflower,
pineapple, and cranberries,
While the pastry-cook plant cherry-brandy will grant - apple puffs,
and three-corners, and banberries -
The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by ROTHSCHILD
and BARING,
And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake with a shudder
despairing -
You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder