C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Captain and the Mermaids
By William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
I
So hard-a-port upon your lee!
A ship on starboard tack!
She’s bound upon a private cruise—
(This is the kind of spice I use
To give a salt-sea smack).
(Save in a gale or strong monsoon)
Great Captain Capel Cleggs
(Great morally, though rather short)
Sat at an open weather-port
And aired his shapely legs.
On cable chains and distant rocks,
To gaze upon those limbs;
For legs like those, of flesh and bone,
Are things “not generally known”
To any merman timbs.
Much time (as far as I’m aware)
With Cleggs’s legs to spend;
Though mermaids swam around all day
And gazed, exclaiming, “That’s the way
A gentleman should end!
And calves and ankles such as these
Which we in rapture hail,
Are far more eloquent, it’s clear
(When clothed in silk and kerseymere),
Than any nasty tail.”
Rejoiced to add to others’ joy,
And when the day was dry,
Because it pleased the lookers-on,
He sat from morn till night—though con-
Stitutionally shy.
But finally they jealous grew,
And sounded loud recalls;
But vainly. So these fishy males
Declared they too would clothe their tails
In silken hose and smalls.
And made their nether robes—but when
They drew with dainty touch
The kerseymere upon their tails,
They found it scraped against their scales,
And hurt them very much.
To deck their tails by way of hose
(They never thought of shoon)
For such a use was much too thin,—
It tore against the caudal fin,
And “went in ladders” soon.
They sent their most seductive man,
This note to him to show:—
“Our Monarch sends to Captain Cleggs
His humble compliments, and begs
He’ll join him down below;
Besides, if Captain Cleggs should be
(As our advices say)
A judge of mermaids, he will find
Our lady fish of every kind
Inspection will repay.”
For Capel thought he could descry
An admirable plan
To study all their ways and laws—
(But not their lady fish, because
He was a married man).
Jumped overboard, and dropped from view
Like stone from catapult;
And when he reached the merman’s lair,
He certainly was welcomed there,
But ah! with what result!
Or make a note of what he saw,
Or interesting mem.:
The lady fish he couldn’t find,
But that, of course, he didn’t mind—
He didn’t come for them.
The mermen drawn in double rank
Gave him a hearty hail,
Yet when secure of Captain Cleggs,
They cut off both his lovely legs,
And gave him such a tail!
His blithesome crew convulsive roar’d,
To see him altered so.
The admiralty did insist
That he upon the half-pay list
Immediately should go.
“It’s my misfortune—not my fault,”
With tear and trembling lip—
In vain poor Capel begged and begged.
“A man must be completely legged
Who rules a British ship.”
He was a wag, though very proud,—
And much rejoiced to say,
“You’re only half a captain now—
And so, my worthy friend, I vow
You’ll only get half-pay!”