The Bab Ballads With which are included Songs of a Savoyard: By W. S. Gilbert: With 350 illustrations by the author |
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THE NATIONAL ANTHEM |
 | The Bab Ballads |  |
526
THE NATIONAL ANTHEM
A monarch is pestered with cares,
Though, no doubt, he can often trepan them;
But one comes in a shape he can never escape—
The implacable National Anthem!
Though for quiet and rest he may yearn,
It pursues him at every turn—
No chance of forsaking
Its rococo numbers;
They haunt him when waking—
They poison his slumbers—
Like the Banbury Lady, whom every one knows,
He's cursed with its music wherever he goes!
Though its words but imperfectly rhyme,
And the devil himself couldn't scan them;
With composure polite he endures day and night
That illiterate National Anthem!
Though, no doubt, he can often trepan them;
But one comes in a shape he can never escape—
The implacable National Anthem!
Though for quiet and rest he may yearn,
It pursues him at every turn—
No chance of forsaking
Its rococo numbers;
They haunt him when waking—
They poison his slumbers—
Like the Banbury Lady, whom every one knows,
He's cursed with its music wherever he goes!
Though its words but imperfectly rhyme,
And the devil himself couldn't scan them;
With composure polite he endures day and night
That illiterate National Anthem!
527
It serves a good purpose, I own:
Its strains are devout and impressive—
Its heart-stirring notes raise a lump in our throats
As we burn with devotion excessive:
But the King, who's been bored by that song
From his cradle—each day—all day long—
Who's heard it loud-shouted
By throats operatic,
And loyally spouted
By courtiers emphatic—
By soldier—by sailor—by drum and by fife—
Small blame if he thinks it the plague of his life!
While his subjects sing loudly and long,
Their King—who would willingly ban them—
Sits worry disguising, anathematising
That Bogie, the National Anthem!
Its strains are devout and impressive—
Its heart-stirring notes raise a lump in our throats
As we burn with devotion excessive:
But the King, who's been bored by that song
From his cradle—each day—all day long—
Who's heard it loud-shouted
By throats operatic,
And loyally spouted
By courtiers emphatic—
By soldier—by sailor—by drum and by fife—
Small blame if he thinks it the plague of his life!
While his subjects sing loudly and long,
Their King—who would willingly ban them—
Sits worry disguising, anathematising
That Bogie, the National Anthem!
| The Bab Ballads | |