章节正文
gun.
And as he was proud of his gun - such 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 age - or somebody might declare
That BARNACLE'S 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! There's dirty weather ahead!
(I do not mean that tempests threatened the HOT CROSS BUN,
In THAT case, I don't know whatever we SHOULD have done!)
After a fortnight's 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 sailor's blue array,
To follow the shifting fate of kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.
* * * * * * * *
It's strange to think that I should ever have loved young men,
But I'm speaking of ten years past - I was barely sixty then,
And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and age, I trow!
And poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes have lost their lustre now!
Ballad: The Two Ogres
Good children, list, if you're inclined,
And wicked children too -
This pretty ballad is designed
Especially for you.
Two ogres dwelt in Wickham Wold -
Each TRAITS distinctive had:
The younger was as good as gold,
The elder was as bad.
A wicked, disobedient son
Was JAMES M'ALPINE, and
A contrast to the elder one,
Good APPLEBODY BLAND.
M'ALPINE - brutes like him are few -
In greediness delights,
A melancholyvictim to
Unchastened appetites.
Good, well-bred children every day
He ravenously ate, -
All boys were fish who found their way
Into M'ALPINE'S net:
Boys whose good breeding is innate,
Whose sums are always right;
And boys who don't expostulate
When sent to bed at night;
And kindly boys who never search
The nests of birds of song;
And serious boys for whom, in church,
No sermon is too long.
Contrast with JAMES'S greedy haste
And comprehensive hand,
The nice discriminating taste
Of APPLEBODY BLAND.
BLAND only eats bad boys, who swear -
Who CAN behave, but DON'T -
Disgraceful lads who say "don't care,"
And "shan't," and "can't," and "won't."
Who wet their shoes and learn to box,
And say what isn't true,
Who bite their nails and jam their frocks,
And make long noses too;
Who kick a nurse's aged shin,
And sit in sulky mopes;
And boys who twirl poor kittens in
Distracting zoetropes.
But JAMES, when he was quite a youth,
Had often been to school,
And though so bad, to tell the truth,
He wasn't quite a fool.
At logic few with him could vie;
To his peculiar sect
He could propose a fallacy
With singular effect.
So, when his Mentors said, "Expound -
Why eat good children - why?"
Upon his Mentors he would round
With this absurd reply:
"I have been taught to love the good -
The pure - the unalloyed -
And wicked boys, I've understood,
I always should avoid.
"Why do I eat good children - why?
Because I love them so!"
(But this was empty sophistry,
As your Papa can show.)
Now, though the learning of his friends
Was truly not immense,
They had a way of fitting ends
By rule of common sense.
"Away, away!" his Mentors cried,
"Thou uncongenial pest!
A quirk's a thing we can't abide,
A quibble we detest!
"A fallacy in your reply
Our intellect descries,
Although we don't pretend to spy
Exactly where it lies.
"In misery and penal woes
Must end a glutton's joys;
And learn how ogres punish those
Who dare to eat good boys.
"Secured by fetter, cramp, and chain,
And gagged securely - so -
You shall be placed in Drury Lane,
Where only good lads go.
"Surrounded there by virtuous boys,
You'll suffer torture wus
Than that which constantly annoys
Disgraceful TANTALUS.
("If you would learn the woes that vex
Poor TANTALUS, down there,
Pray borrow of Papa an ex-
Purgated LEMPRIERE.)
"But as for BLAND who, as it seems,
Eats only naughty boys,
We've planned a recompense that teems
With gastronomic joys.
"Where wicked youths in crowds are stowed
He shall unquestioned rule,
And have the run of Hackney Road
Reformatory School!"
Ballad: Little Oliver
EARL JOYCE he was a kind old party
Whom nothing ever could put out,
Though eighty-two, he still was hearty,
Excepting as regarded gout.
He had one unexampled daughter,
The LADY MINNIE-HAHA JOYCE,
Fair MINNIE-HAHA, "Laughing Water,"
So called from her melodious voice.
By Nature planned for lover-capture,
Her beauty every heart assailed;
The good old nobleman with rapture
Observed how widely she prevailed
Aloof from all the lordly flockings
Of titled swells who worshipped her,
There stood, in pumps and cotton stockings,
One humble lover - OLIVER.
He was no peer by Fortune petted,
His name recalled no bygone age;
He was no lordling coronetted -
Alas! he was a simple page!
With vain appeals he never bored her,
But stood in silent sorrow by -
He knew how fondly he adored her,
And knew, alas! how hopelessly!
Well grounded by a village tutor
In languages alive and past,
He'd say unto himself, "Knee-suitor,
Oh, do not go beyond your last!"
But though his name could boast no handle,
He could not every hope resign;
As moths will hover round a candle,
So hovered he about her shrine.
The brilliant candle dazed the moth well:
One day she sang to her Papa
The air that MARIE sings with BOTHWELL
In NEIDERMEYER'S opera.
(Therein a stable boy, it's stated,
Devoutly loved a noble dame,
Who ardently reciprocated
His rather injudicious flame.)
And then, before the piano closing
(He listened coyly at the door),
She sang a song of her composing -
I give one verse from half a score:
BALLAD
Why, pretty page, art ever sighing?
Is sorrow in thy heartlet lying?
Come, set a-ringing
Thy laugh entrancing,
And ever singing
And ever dancing.
Ever singing, Tra! la! la!
Ever dancing, Tra! la! la!
Ever singing, ever dancing,
Ever singing, Tra! la! la!
He skipped for joy like little muttons,
He danced like Esmeralda's kid.
(She did not mean a boy in buttons,
Although he fancied that she did.)
Poor lad! convinced he thus would win her,
He wore out many pairs of soles;
He danced when taking down the dinner -
He danced when bringing up the coals.
He danced and sang (however laden)
With his incessant "Tra! la! la!"
And as he was proud of his gun - such 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 age - or somebody might declare
That BARNACLE'S 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! There's dirty weather ahead!
(I do not mean that tempests threatened the HOT CROSS BUN,
In THAT case, I don't know whatever we SHOULD have done!)
After a fortnight's 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 sailor's blue array,
To follow the shifting fate of kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.
* * * * * * * *
It's strange to think that I should ever have loved young men,
But I'm speaking of ten years past - I was barely sixty then,
And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and age, I trow!
And poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes have lost their lustre now!
Ballad: The Two Ogres
Good children, list, if you're inclined,
And wicked children too -
This pretty ballad is designed
Especially for you.
Two ogres dwelt in Wickham Wold -
Each TRAITS distinctive had:
The younger was as good as gold,
The elder was as bad.
A wicked, disobedient son
Was JAMES M'ALPINE, and
A contrast to the elder one,
Good APPLEBODY BLAND.
M'ALPINE - brutes like him are few -
In greediness delights,
A melancholyvictim to
Unchastened appetites.
Good, well-bred children every day
He ravenously ate, -
All boys were fish who found their way
Into M'ALPINE'S net:
Boys whose good breeding is innate,
Whose sums are always right;
And boys who don't expostulate
When sent to bed at night;
And kindly boys who never search
The nests of birds of song;
And serious boys for whom, in church,
No sermon is too long.
Contrast with JAMES'S greedy haste
And comprehensive hand,
The nice discriminating taste
Of APPLEBODY BLAND.
BLAND only eats bad boys, who swear -
Who CAN behave, but DON'T -
Disgraceful lads who say "don't care,"
And "shan't," and "can't," and "won't."
Who wet their shoes and learn to box,
And say what isn't true,
Who bite their nails and jam their frocks,
And make long noses too;
Who kick a nurse's aged shin,
And sit in sulky mopes;
And boys who twirl poor kittens in
Distracting zoetropes.
But JAMES, when he was quite a youth,
Had often been to school,
And though so bad, to tell the truth,
He wasn't quite a fool.
At logic few with him could vie;
To his peculiar sect
He could propose a fallacy
With singular effect.
So, when his Mentors said, "Expound -
Why eat good children - why?"
Upon his Mentors he would round
With this absurd reply:
"I have been taught to love the good -
The pure - the unalloyed -
And wicked boys, I've understood,
I always should avoid.
"Why do I eat good children - why?
Because I love them so!"
(But this was empty sophistry,
As your Papa can show.)
Now, though the learning of his friends
Was truly not immense,
They had a way of fitting ends
By rule of common sense.
"Away, away!" his Mentors cried,
"Thou uncongenial pest!
A quirk's a thing we can't abide,
A quibble we detest!
"A fallacy in your reply
Our intellect descries,
Although we don't pretend to spy
Exactly where it lies.
"In misery and penal woes
Must end a glutton's joys;
And learn how ogres punish those
Who dare to eat good boys.
"Secured by fetter, cramp, and chain,
And gagged securely - so -
You shall be placed in Drury Lane,
Where only good lads go.
"Surrounded there by virtuous boys,
You'll suffer torture wus
Than that which constantly annoys
Disgraceful TANTALUS.
("If you would learn the woes that vex
Poor TANTALUS, down there,
Pray borrow of Papa an ex-
Purgated LEMPRIERE.)
"But as for BLAND who, as it seems,
Eats only naughty boys,
We've planned a recompense that teems
With gastronomic joys.
"Where wicked youths in crowds are stowed
He shall unquestioned rule,
And have the run of Hackney Road
Reformatory School!"
Ballad: Little Oliver
EARL JOYCE he was a kind old party
Whom nothing ever could put out,
Though eighty-two, he still was hearty,
Excepting as regarded gout.
He had one unexampled daughter,
The LADY MINNIE-HAHA JOYCE,
Fair MINNIE-HAHA, "Laughing Water,"
So called from her melodious voice.
By Nature planned for lover-capture,
Her beauty every heart assailed;
The good old nobleman with rapture
Observed how widely she prevailed
Aloof from all the lordly flockings
Of titled swells who worshipped her,
There stood, in pumps and cotton stockings,
One humble lover - OLIVER.
He was no peer by Fortune petted,
His name recalled no bygone age;
He was no lordling coronetted -
Alas! he was a simple page!
With vain appeals he never bored her,
But stood in silent sorrow by -
He knew how fondly he adored her,
And knew, alas! how hopelessly!
Well grounded by a village tutor
In languages alive and past,
He'd say unto himself, "Knee-suitor,
Oh, do not go beyond your last!"
But though his name could boast no handle,
He could not every hope resign;
As moths will hover round a candle,
So hovered he about her shrine.
The brilliant candle dazed the moth well:
One day she sang to her Papa
The air that MARIE sings with BOTHWELL
In NEIDERMEYER'S opera.
(Therein a stable boy, it's stated,
Devoutly loved a noble dame,
Who ardently reciprocated
His rather injudicious flame.)
And then, before the piano closing
(He listened coyly at the door),
She sang a song of her composing -
I give one verse from half a score:
BALLAD
Why, pretty page, art ever sighing?
Is sorrow in thy heartlet lying?
Come, set a-ringing
Thy laugh entrancing,
And ever singing
And ever dancing.
Ever singing, Tra! la! la!
Ever dancing, Tra! la! la!
Ever singing, ever dancing,
Ever singing, Tra! la! la!
He skipped for joy like little muttons,
He danced like Esmeralda's kid.
(She did not mean a boy in buttons,
Although he fancied that she did.)
Poor lad! convinced he thus would win her,
He wore out many pairs of soles;
He danced when taking down the dinner -
He danced when bringing up the coals.
He danced and sang (however laden)
With his incessant "Tra! la! la!"
- lieutenant [lef´tenənt]
n.陆军中尉；代理；副手 (初中英语单词) - whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- barely [´beəli] ad.公开地；仅仅 (初中英语单词)
- wicked [´wikid] a.邪恶的；不道德的 (初中英语单词)
- contrast [´kɔntrɑ:st] n.对比 v.使对比(照) (初中英语单词)
- victim [´viktim] n.牺牲者；受害者 (初中英语单词)
- greedy [´gri:di] a.贪婪的；馋的 (初中英语单词)
- behave [bi´heiv] v.举止；表现；举止端正 (初中英语单词)
- peculiar [pi´kju:liə] a.特有的；奇异的 (初中英语单词)
- absurd [əb´sə:d] a.荒谬的，可笑的 (初中英语单词)
- learning [´lə:niŋ] n.学习；学问；知识 (初中英语单词)
- pretend [pri´tend] v.假装；借口；妄求 (初中英语单词)
- misery [´mizəri] n.痛苦；悲惨；穷困 (初中英语单词)
- punish [´pʌniʃ] vt.(惩)罚；痛击；折磨 (初中英语单词)
- torture [´tɔ:tʃə] n.&vt.折磨；痛苦；拷问 (初中英语单词)
- constantly [´kɔnstəntli] ad.经常地；不断地 (初中英语单词)
- humble [´hʌmbəl] a.谦卑的 vt.贬抑 (初中英语单词)
- brilliant [´briliənt] a.灿烂的；杰出的 (初中英语单词)
- stable [´steibəl] n.马棚 a.稳固的 (初中英语单词)
- cruise [kru:z] vi.&n.巡航；航游 (高中英语单词)
- ballad [´bæləd] n.民歌，民谣 (高中英语单词)
- melancholy [´melənkəli] n.忧郁 a.忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- sermon [´sə:mən] n.说教；训诫；讲道 (高中英语单词)
- comprehensive [,kɔmpri´hensiv] a.综合的；理解的 (高中英语单词)
- singular [´siŋgjulə] a.单一的；非凡的 (高中英语单词)
- naughty [´nɔ:ti] a.顽皮的；下流的 (高中英语单词)
- distinctive [di´stiŋktiv] a.有区别的；有特色的 (英语四级单词)
- breeding [´bri:diŋ] n.饲养，教养 (英语四级单词)
- intellect [´intilekt] n.智力；有才智的人 (英语四级单词)
- fetter [´fetə] n.脚镣；束缚 (英语四级单词)
- virtuous [´və:tjuəs] a.道德的；善良的 (英语四级单词)
- recompense [´rekəmpens] n.&vt.回报；补偿 (英语四级单词)
- nobleman [´nəublmən] n.贵族 (英语四级单词)
- fondly [´fɔndli] ad.喜爱地；愚蠢地 (英语四级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
- fitting [´fitiŋ] a.适当的 n.试衣 (英语六级单词)
- securely [si´kjuəli] ad.安全地；无疑地 (英语六级单词)
- lordly [´lɔ:dli] a.高贵的；高傲的 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- incessant [in´sesənt] a.不断的，不停的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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