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Australian Lyrics &c

By Douglas B. W. Sladen
 

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ISABELLA VICTRIX.

Isabella, Isabella, I know an Isabella,
Blue-eyed and fair faced, with a coronal of auburn hair,
It was just a minute since, that 'neath a Japanese umbrella,
She floated in that hammock on the liquid summer air.
Isabella, Isabella, she is coy, Isabella;
For whom keeps she those lips that are as ruddy as the wine
From the presses of the hermitage of Hubert de Castella,
And as potent to the drinker as the port of fifty-nine?
Isabella, Isabella, as she slept, Isabella,
I stole on tip of toe to make her ignorance my bliss;
But she started up and fled, as if a cobra di capella
Had glided from the wall, and not a lover for a kiss.
Isabella, Isabella, had she stayed, Isabella,
She might have heard a tale that would have changed her young life's thread,
But the little witch divined that I had some such news to tell her,
And thought for both our sakes that it had best be left unsaid.

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Isabella, Isabella, resistless Isabella,
Although she looks so tender and so girlish and so sweet,
She can echo the proud boasting of the hero boy of Pella,
That all the world he knew of lay subjected at his feet.
Isabella, Isabella, defiant Isabella,
So cruel to her prisoners but when besieged so brave,
We shall see her, when the conqueror predestined comes to quell her,
Holding her hands out for the chains, a captive and a slave.
Isabella, Isabella, she wounds me, Isabella,
And tramples on me, yet I could accord forgiveness
To my arch foe Isabella, if she would but let me tell her
A little tale I have by heart, and interpose a “Yes.”