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.

November 18, 1836

May 29, 1911

English

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Limited Liability

Some seven men form an Association
(If possible, all Peers and Baronets),
They start off with a public declaration
To what extent they mean to pay their debts.
That's called their Capital:    if they are wary
They will not quote it at a sum immense.
The figure's immaterial - it may vary
From eighteen million down to eighteenpence.
I should put it rather low;
The good sense of doing so
Will be evident at once to any debtor.
When it's left to you to say
What amount you mean to pay,
Why, the lower you can put it at, the better.

They then proceed to trade with all who'll trust 'em,
Quite irrespective of their capital
(It's shady, but it's sanctified by custom);
Bank, Railway, Loan, or Panama Canal.
You can't embark on trading too tremendous -
...

William Schwenck Gilbert

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...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Lorenzo De Lardy

DALILAH DE DARDY adored
The very correctest of cards,
LORENZO DE LARDY, a lord
He was one of Her Majesty's Guards.

DALILAH DE DARDY was fat,
DALILAH DE DARDY was old
(No doubt in the world about that)
But DALILAH DE DARDY had gold.

LORENZO DE LARDY was tall,
The flower of maidenly pets,
Young ladies would love at his call,
But LORENZO DE LARDY had debts.

His money-position was queer,
And one of his favourite freaks
Was to hide himself three times a year,
In Paris, for several weeks.

Many days didn't pass him before
He fanned himself into a flame,
For a beautiful "DAM DU COMPTWORE,"
And this was her singular name:

ALICE EULALIE CORALINE
EUPHROSINE COLOMBINA THERESE
JULIETTE STEPHANIE CELESTINE
CHA...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Lost Mr. Blake.

Mr. Blake was a regular out-and-out hardened sinner,
Who was quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak,
He was in the habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a glass of grog on a Sunday after dinner,
And seldom thought of going to church more than twice or--if Good
Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in it--three times a week.

He was quite indifferent as to the particular kinds of dresses
That the clergyman wore at church where he used to go to pray,
And whatever he did in the way of relieving a chap's distresses,
He always did in a nasty, sneaking, underhanded, hole-and-corner sort of way.

I have known him indulge in profane, ungentlemanly emphatics,
When the Protestant Church has been divided on the subject of the proper width of a chasuble's hem;
...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Mister William.

Oh, listen to the tale of Mister William, if you please,
Whom naughty, naughty judges sent away beyond the seas.
He forged a party's will, which caused anxiety and strife,
Resulting in his getting penal servitude for life.

He was a kindly goodly man, and naturally prone,
Instead of taking others' gold, to give away his own.
But he had heard of Vice, and longed for only once to strike -
To plan ONE little wickedness--to see what it was like.

He argued with himself, and said, "A spotless man am I;
I can't be more respectable, however hard I try!
For six and thirty years I've always been as good as gold,
And now for half an hour I'll plan infamy untold!

"A baby who is wicked at the early age of one,
And then reforms--and dies at thirty-six a spotless so...

William Schwenck Gilbert

My Dream.

The other night, from cares exempt,
I slept and what d'you think I dreamt?
I dreamt that somehow I had come
To dwell in Topsy-Turveydom -

Where vice is virtue virtue, vice:
Where nice is nasty nasty, nice:
Where right is wrong and wrong is right -
Where white is black and black is white.

Where babies, much to their surprise,
Are born astonishingly wise;
With every Science on their lips,
And Art at all their finger-tips.

For, as their nurses dandle them
They crow binomial theorem,
With views (it seems absurd to us)
On differential calculus.

But though a babe, as I have said,
Is born with learning in his head,
He must forget it, if he can,
Before he calls himself a man.

For that which we call folly here,
Is ...

William Schwenck Gilbert

My Lady

Bedecked in fashion trim,
With every curl a-quiver;
Or leaping, light of limb,
O'er rivulet and river;
Or skipping o'er the lea
On daffodil and daisy;
Or stretched beneath a tree,
All languishing and lazy;
Whatever be her mood -
Be she demurely prude
Or languishingly lazy -
My lady drives me crazy!
In vain her heart is wooed,
Whatever be her mood!

What profit should I gain
Suppose she loved me dearly?
Her coldness turns my brain
To VERGE of madness merely.
Her kiss - though, Heaven knows,
To dream of it were treason -
Would tend, as I suppose,
To utter loss of reason!
My state is not amiss;
I would not have a kiss
Which, in or out of season,
Might tend to loss of reason:
What profit in such bliss?
A ...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Old Paul And Old Tim

When rival adorers come courting a maid,
There's something or other may often be said,
Why HE should be pitched upon rather than HIM.
This wasn't the case with Old PAUL and Old TIM.

No soul could discover a reason at all
For marrying TIMOTHY rather than PAUL;
Though all could have offered good reasons, on oath,
Against marrying either or marrying both.

They were equally wealthy and equally old,
They were equally timid and equally bold;
They were equally tall as they stood in their shoes
Between them, in fact, there was nothing to choose.

Had I been young EMILY, I should have said,
"You're both much too old for a pretty young maid,
Threescore at the least you are verging upon";
But I wasn't young EMILY. Let us get on.

No coward's blood r...

William Schwenck Gilbert

One Against The World

It's my opinion - though I own
In thinking so I'm quite alone -
In some respects I'm but a fright.
YOU like my features, I suppose?
I'M disappointed with my nose:
Some rave about it - perhaps they're right.
My figure just sets off a fit;
But when they say it's exquisite
(And they DO say so), that's too strong.
I hope I'm not what people call
Opinionated!    After all,
I'm but a goose, and may be wrong!

When charms enthral
There's some excuse
For measures strong;
And after all
I'm but a goose,
And may be wrong!

My teeth are very neat, no doubt;
But after all they MAY fall out:
I think they will - some think they won't.
My hands are small, as you may see,
But not as small as they might be,
At least, I think so - oth...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Only A Dancing Girl

Only a dancing girl,
With an unromantic style,
With borrowed color and curl,
With fixed mechanical smile,
With many a hackneyed wile,
With ungrammatical lips,
And corns that mar her trips!

Hung from the "flies" in air,
She acts a palpable lie,
She's as little a fairy there
As unpoetical I!
I hear you asking, Why
Why in the world I sing
This tawdry, tinselled thing?

No airy fairy she,
As she hangs in arsenic green,
From a highly impossible tree,
In a highly impossible scene
(Herself not over clean).
For fays don't suffer, I'm told,
From bunions, coughs, or cold.

And stately dames that bring
Their daughters there to see,
Pronounce the "dancing thing"
No better than she should be.
With her skirt at he...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Only Roses!

To a garden full of posies
Cometh one to gather flowers,
And he wanders through its bowers
Toying with the wanton roses,
Who, uprising from their beds,
Hold on high their shameless heads
With their pretty lips a-pouting,
Never doubting never doubting
That for Cytherean posies
He would gather aught but roses!

In a nest of weeds and nettles,
Lay a violet, half hidden,
Hoping that his glance unbidden
Yet might fall upon her petals,
Though she lived alone, apart,
Hope lay nestling at her heart,
But, alas! the cruel awaking
Set her little heart a-breaking,
For he gathered for his posies
Only roses only roses!

William Schwenck Gilbert

Out Of Sorts

When you find you're a broken-down critter,
Who is all of a trimmle and twitter,
With your palate unpleasantly bitter,
As if you'd just bitten a pill -
When your legs are as thin as dividers,
And you're plagued with unruly insiders,
And your spine is all creepy with spiders,
And you're highly gamboge in the gill -
When you've got a beehive in your head,
And a sewing machine in each ear,
And you feel that you've eaten your bed,
And you've got a bad headache DOWN HERE -
When such facts are about,
And these symptoms you find
In your body or crown -
Well, it's time to look out,
You may make up your mind
You had better lie down!

When your lips are all smeary - like tallow,
And your tongue is decidedly yallow,
With a pint of warm oil in you...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Pasha Bailey Ben

A proud Pasha was BAILEY BEN,
His wives were three, his tails were ten;
His form was dignified, but stout,
Men called him "Little Roundabout."

His Importance

Pale Pilgrims came from o'er the sea
To wait on PASHA BAILEY B.,
All bearing presents in a crowd,
For B. was poor as well as proud.

His Presents

They brought him onions strung on ropes,
And cold boiled beef, and telescopes,
And balls of string, and shrimps, and guns,
And chops, and tacks, and hats, and buns.

More of them

They brought him white kid gloves, and pails,
And candlesticks, and potted quails,
And capstan-bars, and scales and weights,
And ornaments for empty grates.

Why I mention these

My tale is not of these oh no!
I only m...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Peter The Wag

Policeman PETER forth I drag
From his obscure retreat:
He was a merry genial wag,
Who loved a mad conceit.
If he were asked the time of day,
By country bumpkins green,
He not unfrequently would say,
"A quarter past thirteen."

If ever you by word of mouth
Inquired of MISTER FORTH
The way to somewhere in the South,
He always sent you North.
With little boys his beat along
He loved to stop and play;
He loved to send old ladies wrong,
And teach their feet to stray.

He would in frolic moments, when
Such mischief bent upon,
Take Bishops up as betting men
Bid Ministers move on.
Then all the worthy boys he knew
He regularly licked,
And always collared people who
Had had their pockets picked.

He was not naturall...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Phrenology.

"Come, collar this bad man -
Around the throat he knotted me
Till I to choke began -
In point of fact, garotted me!"

So spake Sir Herbert Write
To James, Policeman Thirty-two -
All ruffled with his fight
Sir Herbert was, and dirty too.

Policeman nothing said
(Though he had much to say on it),
But from the bad man's head
He took the cap that lay on it.

"No, great Sir Herbert White -
Impossible to take him up.
This man is honest quite -
Wherever did you rake him up?

"For Burglars, Thieves, and Co.,
Indeed, I'm no apologist,
But I, some years ago,
Assisted a Phrenologist.

"Observe his various bumps,
His head as I uncover it:
His morals lie in lumps
All round about and over it."

"Now take ...

William Schwenck Gilbert

Poetry Everywhere

What time the poet hath hymned
The writhing maid, lithe-limbed,
Quivering on amaranthine asphodel,
How can he paint her woes,
Knowing, as well he knows,
That all can be set right with calomel?

When from the poet's plinth
The amorous colocynth
Yearns for the aloe, faint with rapturous thrills,
How can he hymn their throes
Knowing, as well he knows,
That they are only uncompounded pills?

Is it, and can it be,
Nature hath this decree,
Nothing poetic in the world shall dwell?
Or that in all her works
Something poetic lurks,
Even in colocynth and calomel?

William Schwenck Gilbert

Proper Pride.

The Sun, whose rays
Are all ablaze
With ever living glory,
Does not deny
His majesty
He scorns to tell a story!
He don't exclaim
"I blush for shame,
So kindly be indulgent,"
But, fierce and bold,
In fiery gold,
He glories all effulgent!

I mean to rule the earth.
As he the sky
We really know our worth,
The Sun and I!

Observe his flame,
That placid dame,
The Moon's Celestial Highness;
There's not a trace
Upon her face
Of diffidence or shyness:
She borrows light
That, through the night,
Mankind may all acclaim her!
And, truth to tell,
She lights up well,
So I, for one, don't blame her!

Ah, pray make no mistake,
We are not shy;
We're very wide awake,
The Moon and I!

William Schwenck Gilbert

Put A Penny In The Slot

If my action's stiff and crude,
Do not laugh, because it's rude.
If my gestures promise larks,
Do not make unkind remarks.
Clockwork figures may be found
Everywhere and all around.
Ten to one, if I but knew,
You are clockwork figures too.
And the motto of the lot,
"Put a penny in the slot!"

Usurer, for money lent,
Making out his cent per cent -
Widow plump or maiden rare,
Deaf and dumb to suitor's prayer -
Tax collectors, whom in vain
You implore to "call again" -
Cautious voter, whom you find
Slow in making up his mind -
If you'd move them on the spot,
Put a penny in the slot!

Bland reporters in the courts,
Who suppress police reports -
Sheriff's yeoman, pen in fist,
Making out a jury list -
Stern policemen,...

William Schwenck Gilbert

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