A Satire Anthology

At last, to their astonishment, on getting up one day,
They saw a frigate anchored in the offing of the bay.

To Peter an idea occurred. “Suppose we cross the main?
So good an opportunity may not be found again.”
And Somers thought a minute, then ejaculated, “Done!
I wonder how my business in the City’s getting on?”

“But stay,” said Mr. Peter; “when in England, as you know,
I earned a living tasting teas for Baker, Croop, and Co.,
I may be superseded – my employers think me dead!”
“Then come with me,” said Somers, “and taste indigo instead.”

But all their plans were scattered in a moment when they found
The vessel was a convict ship from Portland outward bound;
When a boat came off to fetch them, though they felt it very kind,
To go on board they firmly but respectfully declined.

As both the happy settlers roared with laughter at the joke,
They recognized a gentlemanly fellow pulling stroke:
’Twas Robinson – a convict, in an unbecoming frock!
Condemned to seven years for misappropriating stock!!!

They laughed no more, for Somers thought he had been rather rash
In knowing one whose friend had misappropriated cash;
And Peter thought a foolish tack he must have gone upon
In making the acquaintance of a friend of Robinson.

At first they didn’t quarrel very openly, I’ve heard;
They nodded when they met, and now and then exchanged a word:
The word grew rare, and rarer still the nodding of the head,
And when they meet each other now, they cut each other dead.

To allocate the island they agreed by word of mouth,
And Peter takes the north again, and Somers takes the south;
And Peter has the oysters, which he hates, in layers thick,
And Somers has the turtle – turtle always makes him sick.

    W. S. Gilbert.

THE ÆSTHETE

IF you’re anxious for to shine in the high æsthetic line, as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant them everywhere;
You must lie upon the daisies, and discourse in novel phrases of your complicated state of mind
(The meaning doesn’t matter, if it’s only idle chatter of a transcendental kind).
And every one will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
“If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man this deep young man must be!”

Be eloquent in praise of the very dull old days which have long since passed away,
And convince ’em, if you can, that the reign of good Queen Anne was Culture’s palmiest day.
Of course you will pooh-pooh whatever’s fresh and new, and declare it’s crude and mean,
And that Art stopped short in the cultivated court of the Empress Josephine.
And every one will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
“If that’s not good enough for him which is good enough for me,
Why, what a very cultivated kind of youth this kind of youth must be!”
Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your languid spleen,
An attachment à la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a not-too-French French bean.
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle in the high æsthetic band,
If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your mediæval hand.
And every one will say,
As you walk your flowery way,
“If he’s content with a vegetable love, which would certainly not suit me,
Why, what a most particularly pure young man this pure young man must be!”

    W. S. Gilbert.

TOO LATE!

“Ah! si la jeunesse savait, – si la vieillesse pouvait!”

THERE sat an old man on a rock,
And unceasing bewailed him of Fate,
That concern where we all must take stock,
Though our vote has no hearing or weight;
And the old man sang him an old, old song —
Never sang voice so clear and strong
That it could drown the old man’s for long,
For he sang the song, “Too late! too late!”

When we want, we have for our pains
The promise that if we but wait
Till the want has burned out of our brains,
Every means shall be present to state;
While we send for the napkins, the soup gets cold;
While the bonnet is trimming, the face grows old;
When we’ve matched our buttons, the pattern is sold,
And everything comes too late – too late!

“When strawberries seemed like red heavens,
Terrapin stew a wild dream,
When my brain was at sixes and sevens,
If my mother had ‘folks’ and ice-cream,
Then I gazed with a lickerish hunger
At the restaurant-man and fruit-monger —
But oh! how I wished I were younger,
When the goodies all came in a stream – in a stream!