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A Satire Anthology
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Год написания книги
2017
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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 peerage we’ve remodelled on an intellectual basis,
Which certainly is rough on our hereditary races.
(They are going to remodel it in England.)
The brewers and the cotton lords no longer seek admission,
And literary merit meets with proper recognition —
(As literary merit does in England!)
Who knows but we may count among our intellectual chickens
Like them an Earl of Thackeray, and p’r’aps a Duke of Dickens —
Lord Fildes and Viscount Millais (when they come) we’ll welcome sweetly,
And then this happy country will be 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!
W. S. Gilbert.
ETIQUETTE
THE Ballyshannon foundered off the coast of Cariboo,
And down in fathoms many went the captain and the crew;
Down went the owners – greedy men whom hope of gain allured:
Oh, dry the starting tear, for they were heavily insured.
Besides the captain and the mate, the owners and the crew,
The passengers were also drowned excepting only two:
Young Peter Gray, who tasted teas for Baker, Croop, and Co.,
And Somers, who from Eastern shores imported indigo.
These passengers, by reason of their clinging to a mast,
Upon a desert island were eventually cast.
They hunted for their meals, as Alexander Selkirk used,
But they couldn’t chat together – they had not been introduced.
For Peter Gray, and Somers, too, though certainly in trade,
Were properly particular about the friends they made;
And somehow thus they settled it, without a word of mouth,
That Gray should take the northern half, while Somers took the south.
On Peter’s portion oysters grew – a delicacy rare,
But oysters were a delicacy Peter couldn’t bear.
On Somer’s side was turtle, on the shingle lying thick,
Which Somers couldn’t eat, because it always made him sick.
Gray gnashed his teeth with envy as he saw a mighty store
Of turtle unmolested on his fellow-creature’s shore.
The oysters at his feet aside impatiently he shoved,
For turtle and his mother were the only things he loved.
And Somers sighed in sorrow as he settled in the south,
For the thought of Peter’s oysters brought the water to his mouth.
He longed to lay him down upon the shelly bed, and stuff:
He had often eaten oysters, but had never had enough.
How they wished an introduction to each other they had had
When on board the Ballyshannon! And it drove them nearly mad
To think how very friendly with each other they might get,
If it wasn’t for the arbitrary rule of etiquette!
One day, when out a-hunting for the mus ridiculus,
Gray overheard his fellow-man soliloquising thus:
“I wonder how the playmates of my youth are getting on,
M’Connell, S. B. Walters, Paddy Byles, and Robinson?”
These simple words made Peter as delighted as could be;
Old chummies at the Charterhouse were Robinson and he.
He walked straight up to Somers, then he turned extremely red,
Hesitated, hummed and hawed a bit, then cleared his throat, and said:
“I beg your pardon – pray forgive me if I seem too bold,
But you have breathed a name I knew familiarly of old.
You spoke aloud of Robinson – I happened to be by.
You know him?” “Yes, extremely well.” “Allow me, so do I.”
It was enough: they felt they could more pleasantly get on,
For (ah, the magic of the fact!) they each knew Robinson!
And Mr. Somers’ turtle was at Peter’s service quite,
And Mr. Somers punished Peter’s oyster-beds all night.
They soon became like brothers from community of wrongs;
They wrote each other little odes and sang each other songs;
They told each other anecdotes disparaging their wives;
On several occasions, too, they saved each other’s lives.
They felt quite melancholy when they parted for the night,
And got up in the morning soon as ever it was light;
Each other’s pleasant company they reckoned so upon,
And all because it happened that they both knew Robinson!
They lived for many years on that inhospitable shore,
And day by day they learned to love each other more and more.
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 peerage we’ve remodelled on an intellectual basis,
Which certainly is rough on our hereditary races.
(They are going to remodel it in England.)
The brewers and the cotton lords no longer seek admission,
And literary merit meets with proper recognition —
(As literary merit does in England!)
Who knows but we may count among our intellectual chickens
Like them an Earl of Thackeray, and p’r’aps a Duke of Dickens —
Lord Fildes and Viscount Millais (when they come) we’ll welcome sweetly,
And then this happy country will be 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!
W. S. Gilbert.
ETIQUETTE
THE Ballyshannon foundered off the coast of Cariboo,
And down in fathoms many went the captain and the crew;
Down went the owners – greedy men whom hope of gain allured:
Oh, dry the starting tear, for they were heavily insured.
Besides the captain and the mate, the owners and the crew,
The passengers were also drowned excepting only two:
Young Peter Gray, who tasted teas for Baker, Croop, and Co.,
And Somers, who from Eastern shores imported indigo.
These passengers, by reason of their clinging to a mast,
Upon a desert island were eventually cast.
They hunted for their meals, as Alexander Selkirk used,
But they couldn’t chat together – they had not been introduced.
For Peter Gray, and Somers, too, though certainly in trade,
Were properly particular about the friends they made;
And somehow thus they settled it, without a word of mouth,
That Gray should take the northern half, while Somers took the south.
On Peter’s portion oysters grew – a delicacy rare,
But oysters were a delicacy Peter couldn’t bear.
On Somer’s side was turtle, on the shingle lying thick,
Which Somers couldn’t eat, because it always made him sick.
Gray gnashed his teeth with envy as he saw a mighty store
Of turtle unmolested on his fellow-creature’s shore.
The oysters at his feet aside impatiently he shoved,
For turtle and his mother were the only things he loved.
And Somers sighed in sorrow as he settled in the south,
For the thought of Peter’s oysters brought the water to his mouth.
He longed to lay him down upon the shelly bed, and stuff:
He had often eaten oysters, but had never had enough.
How they wished an introduction to each other they had had
When on board the Ballyshannon! And it drove them nearly mad
To think how very friendly with each other they might get,
If it wasn’t for the arbitrary rule of etiquette!
One day, when out a-hunting for the mus ridiculus,
Gray overheard his fellow-man soliloquising thus:
“I wonder how the playmates of my youth are getting on,
M’Connell, S. B. Walters, Paddy Byles, and Robinson?”
These simple words made Peter as delighted as could be;
Old chummies at the Charterhouse were Robinson and he.
He walked straight up to Somers, then he turned extremely red,
Hesitated, hummed and hawed a bit, then cleared his throat, and said:
“I beg your pardon – pray forgive me if I seem too bold,
But you have breathed a name I knew familiarly of old.
You spoke aloud of Robinson – I happened to be by.
You know him?” “Yes, extremely well.” “Allow me, so do I.”
It was enough: they felt they could more pleasantly get on,
For (ah, the magic of the fact!) they each knew Robinson!
And Mr. Somers’ turtle was at Peter’s service quite,
And Mr. Somers punished Peter’s oyster-beds all night.
They soon became like brothers from community of wrongs;
They wrote each other little odes and sang each other songs;
They told each other anecdotes disparaging their wives;
On several occasions, too, they saved each other’s lives.
They felt quite melancholy when they parted for the night,
And got up in the morning soon as ever it was light;
Each other’s pleasant company they reckoned so upon,
And all because it happened that they both knew Robinson!
They lived for many years on that inhospitable shore,
And day by day they learned to love each other more and more.
Другие электронные книги автора Carolyn Wells
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