Life

First you're born - and I'll be bound you
Find a dozen strangers round you.
"Hallo," cries the new-born baby,
"Where's my parents? which may they be?"
Awkward silence - no reply -
Puzzled baby wonders why!
Father rises, bows politely -
Mother smiles (but not too brightly) -
Doctor mumbles like a dumb thing -
Nurse is busy mixing something. -
Every symptom tends to show
You're decidedly DE TROP -
Ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! he! ho! ho!
Time's teetotum,
If you spin it,
Give its quotum
Once a minute:
I'll go bail
You hit the nail,
And if you fail
The deuce is in it!

You grow up, and you discover
What it is to be a lover.
Some young lady is selected -
Poor, perhaps, but well-connected,
Whom you hail (for Love is blind
As the Queen of Fairy-kind.
Though she's plain - perhaps unsightly,
Makes her face up - laces tightly,
In her form your fancy traces
All the gifts of all the graces.
Rivals none the maiden woo,
So you take her and she takes you!
Ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho!
Joke beginning,
Never ceases,
Till your inning
Time releases;
On your way
You blindly stray,
And day by day
The joke increases!

Ten years later - Time progresses -
Sours your temper - thins your tresses;
Fancy, then, her chain relaxes;
Rates are facts and so are taxes.
Fairy Queen's no longer young -
Fairy Queen has such a tongue!
Twins have probably intruded -
Quite unbidden - just as you did;
They're a source of care and trouble -
Just as you were - only double.
Comes at last the final stroke -
Time has had his little joke!
Ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho!
Daily driven
(Wife as drover)
Ill you've thriven -
Ne'er in clover:
Lastly, when
Threescore and ten
(And not till then),
The joke is over!
Ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! ho!
Then - and then
The joke is over!

William Schwenck Gilbert

William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet, and illustrator best known for his collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan, which produced fourteen comic operas, including 'H.M.S. Pinafore', 'The Pirates of Penzance', and 'The Mikado'. His works are known for their light-hearted satirical humor and have remained popular for their wit and creativity. Gilbert was also a barrister and produced several serious plays.

William Schwenck Gilbert

The Aesthete

William Schwenck Gilbert, Simple Poetry

The Bumboat Woman's Story.

William Schwenck Gilbert, Simple Poetry

Only Roses!

William Schwenck Gilbert, Simple Poetry

Is Life A Boon?

William Schwenck Gilbert, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Precocious Baby. A Very True Tale

(To be sung to the Air of the "Whistling Oyster.")

An elderly person a prophet by trade
With his quips and tips
On withered old lips,
He married a young and a beautiful maid;
The cunning old blade!
Though rather decayed,
He married a beautiful, beautiful maid.

She was only eighteen, and as fair as could be,
With her tempting smiles
And maidenly wiles,
And he was a trifle past seventy-three:
Now what she could see
Is a puzzle to me,
In a prophet of seventy seventy-three!

Of all their acquaintances bidden (or bad)
With their loud high jinks
And underbred winks,
None thought they'd a family have but they had;
A dear little lad
Who drove 'em half mad,
For he turned out a horribly fast little cad.

For when he wa...

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The Family Fool.

Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon,
If you listen to popular rumor;
From morning to night he's so joyous and bright,
And he bubbles with wit and good-humor!
He's so quaint and so terse, both in prose and in verse;
Yet though people forgive his transgression,
There are one or two rules that all Family Fools
Must observe, if they love their profession.
There are one or two rules
Half a dozen, maybe,
That all family fools,
Of whatever degree,
Must observe, if they love their profession.

If you wish to succeed as a jester, you'll need
To consider each person auricular:
What is all right for B would quite scandalize C
(For C is so very particular);
And D may be dull, and E's very thick skull
Is as empty of brains as a ladle;
While F ...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Thomson Green And Harriet Hale

(To be sung to the Air of "An 'Orrible Tale.")

Oh list to this incredible tale
Of THOMSON GREEN and HARRIET HALE;
Its truth in one remark you'll sum
"Twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twaddle twum!"

Oh, THOMSON GREEN was an auctioneer,
And made three hundred pounds a year;
And HARRIET HALE, most strange to say,
Gave pianoforte lessons at a sovereign a day.

Oh, THOMSON GREEN, I may remark,
Met HARRIET HALE in Regent's Park,
Where he, in a casual kind of way,
Spoke of the extraordinary beauty of the day.

They met again, and strange, though true,
He courted her for a month or two,
Then to her pa he said, says he,
"Old man, I love your daughter and your daughter worships me!"

Their names were regularly banned,
The wedd...

William Schwenck Gilbert

The Fairy Curate.

Once a fairy
Light and airy
Married with a mortal;
Men, however,
Never, never
Pass the fairy portal.
Slyly stealing,
She to Ealing
Made a daily journey;
There she found him,
Clients round him
(He was an attorney).

Long they tarried,
Then they married.
When the ceremony
Once was ended,
Off they wended
On their moon of honey.
Twelvemonth, maybe,
Saw a baby
(Friends performed an orgie).
Much they prized him,
And baptized him
By the name of Georgie,

Georgie grew up;
Then he flew up
To his fairy mother.
Happy meeting -
Pleasant greeting -
Kissing one another.
"Choose a calling
Most enthralling,
I sincerely urge ye."
"Mother," said he
(Rev'rence made he),
"I wo...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Ode To Joseph Grimaldi, Senior.

"This fellow's wise enough to play the fool,
And to do that well craves a kind of wit."
        Twelfth Night.


I.

Joseph! they say thou'st left the stage,
To toddle down the hill of life,
And taste the flannel'd ease of age,
Apart from pantomimic strife -
"Retir'd - (for Young would call it so) -
The world shut out" - in Pleasant Row!


II.

And hast thou really wash'd at last
From each white cheek the red half-moon!
And all thy public Clownship cast,
To play the private Pantaloon?
All youth - all ages - yet to be
Shall have a heavy miss of thee!


III.

Thou didst not preach to make us wise -
Thou hadst no finger in our schooling -
Thou didst not "lure us to the skies" -
Thy simpl...

Thomas Hood

A Nightmare

When you're lying awake with a dismal headache, 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,

William Schwenck Gilbert