Читать книгу The Bab Ballads - William Schwenck Gilbert - Страница 14

BABETTE she was a fisher gal,

With jupon striped and cap in crimps.

She passed her days inside the Halle,

Or catching little nimble shrimps.

Yet she was sweet as flowers in May,

With no professional bouquet.

JACOT was, of the Customs bold,

An officer, at gay Boulogne,

He loved BABETTE—his love he told,

And sighed, “Oh, soyez vous my own!”

But “Non!” said she, “JACOT, my pet,

Vous êtes trop scraggy pour BABETTE.

“Of one alone I nightly dream,

An able mariner is he,

And gaily serves the Gen’ral Steam-

Boat Navigation Companee.

I’ll marry him, if he but will—

His name, I rather think, is BILL.

“I see him when he’s not aware,

Upon our hospitable coast,

Reclining with an easy air

Upon the Port against a post,

A-thinking of, I’ll dare to say,

His native Chelsea far away!”

“Oh, mon!” exclaimed the Customs bold,

“Mes yeux!” he said (which means “my eye”)

“Oh, chère!” he also cried, I’m told,

“Par Jove,” he added, with a sigh.

“Oh, mon! oh, chère! mes yeux! par Jove!

Je n’aime pas cet enticing cove!”

The Panther’s captain stood hard by,

He was a man of morals strict

If e’er a sailor winked his eye,

Straightway he had that sailor licked,

Mast-headed all (such was his code)