Pasha Bailey Ben
By William Schwenck Gilbert
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 mention them to show
The divers gifts that divers men
Brought o'er the sea to BAILEY BEN.
His Confidant
A confidant had BAILEY B.,
A gay Mongolian dog was he;
I am not good at Turkish names,
And so I call him SIMPLE JAMES.
His Confidant's Countenance
A dreadful legend you might trace
In SIMPLE JAMES'S honest face,
For there you read, in Nature's print,
"A Scoundrel of the Deepest Tint."
His Character
A deed of blood, or fire, or flames,
Was meat and drink to SIMPLE JAMES:
To hide his guilt he did not plan,
But owned himself a bad young man.
The Author to his Reader
And why on earth good BAILEY BEN
(The wisest, noblest, best of men)
Made SIMPLE JAMES his right-hand man
Is quite beyond my mental span.
The same, continued
But there enough of gruesome deeds!
My heart, in thinking of them, bleeds;
And so let SIMPLE JAMES take wing,
'Tis not of him I'm going to sing.
The Pasha's Clerk
Good PASHA BAILEY kept a clerk
(For BAILEY only made his mark),
His name was MATTHEW WYCOMBE COO,
A man of nearly forty-two.
His Accomplishments
No person that I ever knew
Could "yodel" half as well as COO,
And Highlanders exclaimed, "Eh, weel!"
When COO began to dance a reel.
His Kindness to the Pasha's Wives
He used to dance and sing and play
In such an unaffected way,
He cheered the unexciting lives
Of PASHA BAILEY'S lovely wives.
The Author to his Reader
But why should I encumber you
With histories of MATTHEW COO?
Let MATTHEW COO at once take wing,
'Tis not of COO I'm going to sing.
The Author's Muse
Let me recall my wandering Muse;
She SHALL be steady if I choose
She roves, instead of helping me
To tell the deeds of BAILEY B.
The Pasha's Visitor
One morning knocked, at half-past eight,
A tall Red Indian at his gate.
In Turkey, as you're p'raps aware,
Red Indians are extremely rare.
The Visitor's Outfit
Mocassins decked his graceful legs,
His eyes were black, and round as eggs,
And on his neck, instead of beads,
Hung several Catawampous seeds.
What the Visitor said
"Ho, ho!" he said, "thou pale-faced one,
Poor offspring of an Eastern sun,
You've NEVER seen the Red Man skip
Upon the banks of Mississip!"
The Author's Moderation
To say that BAILEY oped his eyes
Would feebly paint his great surprise
To say it almost made him die
Would be to paint it much too high.
The Author to his Reader
But why should I ransack my head
To tell you all that Indian said;
We'll let the Indian man take wing,
'Tis not of him I'm going to sing.
The Reader to the Author
Come, come, I say, that's quite enough
Of this absurd disjointed stuff;
Now let's get on to that affair
About LIEUTENANT-COLONEL FLARE.