A Satire Anthology

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Carolyn Wells

Год написания книги

2017

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    W. S. Gilbert.

TO THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE

BY A MISERABLE WRETCH

ROLL on, thou ball, roll on!
Through pathless realms of space
Roll on!
What though I’m in a sorry case?
What though I cannot meet my bills?
What though I suffer toothache’s ills?
What though I swallow countless pills?
Never you mind!
Roll on!

Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through seas of inky air
Roll on!
It’s true I’ve got no shirts to wear;
It’s true my butcher’s bill is due;
It’s true my prospects all look blue;
But don’t let that unsettle you.
Never you mind!
Roll on!

(It rolls on.)

    W. S. Gilbert.

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 mustachios, 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!

    W. S. Gilbert.

ANGLICISED UTOPIA

SOCIETY has quite forsaken all her wicked courses,
Which empties our police courts, and abolishes divorces.
(Divorce is nearly obsolete in England.)
No tolerance we show to undeserving rank and splendour,
For the higher his position is, the greater the offender.
(That’s a maxim that is prevalent in England.)
No peeress at our drawing-room before the Presence passes
Who wouldn’t be accepted by the lower-middle classes.
Each shady dame, whatever be her rank, is bowed out neatly;
In short, this happy country has been Anglicised completely!
It really is surprising
What a thorough Anglicising
We’ve brought about – Utopia’s quite another land;
In her enterprising movements,
She is England, with improvements,
Which we dutifully offer to our mother-land!

Our city we have beautified – we’ve done it willy-nilly —
And all that isn’t Belgrave Square is Strand and Piccadilly.
(They haven’t any slummeries in England.)
We have solved the labour question with discrimination polished,
So poverty is obsolete, and hunger is abolished.
(They are going to abolish it in England.)
The Chamberlain our native stage has purged, beyond a question,
Of “risky situation and indelicate suggestion”;
No piece is tolerated if it’s costumed indiscreetly —
In short, this happy country has been Anglicised completely!