Poetry Codex

Victorian

W. S. Gilbert

1836–1911

William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911) was an English dramatist, librettist and comic poet. Before he turned to the stage he made his name with the Bab Ballads, comic verses he published in magazines from the 1860s and illustrated with his own drawings, built on topsy-turvy logic and a deadpan manner.

With the composer Arthur Sullivan he wrote fourteen comic operas for the Savoy Theatre, among them H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Iolanthe and The Mikado. Songs of a Savoyard gathers his own favourites among the lyrics of those pieces, patter songs and ballads that satirise class, law, fashion and officialdom.

Poems (167)

  1. The Darned Mounseer
  2. The Englishman
  3. The Disagreeable Man
  4. The Coming By-and-By
  5. The Highly Respectable Gondolier
  6. The Fairy Queen’s Song
  7. Is Life a Boon
  8. The Modern Major-General
  9. The Heavy Dragoon
  10. Proper Pride
  11. The Policeman’s Lot
  12. The Baffled Grumbler
  13. The House of Peers
  14. A Merry Madrigal
  15. The Duke and the Duchess
  16. Eheu Fugaces—!
  17. They’ll None of ’Em Be Missed
  18. Girl Graduates
  19. Braid the Raven Hair
  20. The Working Monarch
  21. The Ape and the Lady
  22. Only Roses
  23. The Rover’s Apology
  24. An Appeal
  25. The Reward of Merit
  26. The Magnet and the Churn
  27. The Family Fool
  28. Sans Souci
  29. A Recipe
  30. The Merryman and His Maid
  31. The Susceptible Chancellor
  32. When a Merry Maiden Marries
  33. The British Tar
  34. A Man Who Would Woo a Fair Maid
  35. The Sorcerer’s Song
  36. The Fickle Breeze
  37. The First Lord’s Song
  38. Would You Know?
  39. Speculation
  40. Ah Me!
  41. The Duke of Plaza-Toro
  42. The Æsthete
  43. Said I to Myself, Said I
  44. Sorry Her Lot
  45. The Contemplative Sentry
  46. The Philosophic Pill
  47. Blue Blood
  48. The Judge’s Song
  49. When I First Put This Uniform on
  50. Solatium
  51. A Nightmare
  52. Don’t Forget!
  53. The Suicide’s Grave
  54. He and She
  55. The Mighty Must
  56. A Mirage
  57. The Ghosts’ High Noon
  58. The Humane Mikado
  59. Willow Waly!
  60. Life Is Lovely All the Year
  61. The Usher’s Charge
  62. The Great Oak Tree
  63. King Goodheart
  64. Sleep On!
  65. The Love-Sick Boy
  66. Poetry Everywhere
  67. He Loves!
  68. True Diffidence
  69. The Tangled Skein
  70. My Lady
  71. One Against the World
  72. Put a Penny in the Slot
  73. Good Little Girls
  74. Life
  75. Limited Liability
  76. Anglicised Utopia
  77. An English Girl
  78. A Manager’s Perplexities
  79. Out of Sorts
  80. How It’s Done
  81. A Classical Revival
  82. The Practical Joker
  83. The National Anthem
  84. Her Terms
  85. The Independent Bee
  86. The Disconcerted Tenor
  87. The Played-Out Humorist
  88. Captain Reece
  89. The Rival Curates
  90. Only a Dancing Girl
  91. General John
  92. To a Little Maid
  93. John and Freddy
  94. Sir Guy the Crusader
  95. Haunted
  96. The Bishop and the ’Busman
  97. The Troubadour
  98. Ferdinando and Elvira; or, The Gentle Pieman
  99. Lorenzo De Lardy
  100. Disillusioned
  101. Babette’s Love
  102. To My Bride
  103. The Folly of Brown
  104. Sir Macklin
  105. The Yarn of the “Nancy Bell”
  106. The Bishop of Rum-Ti-Foo
  107. The Precocious Baby
  108. To Phœbe
  109. Baines Carew, Gentleman
  110. Thomas Winterbottom Hance
  111. The Reverend Micah Sowls
  112. A Discontented Sugar Broker
  113. The Pantomime “Super” to His Mask
  114. The Force of Argument
  115. The Ghost, the Gallant, the Gael, and the Goblin
  116. The Phantom Curate
  117. The Sensation Captain
  118. Tempora Mutantur
  119. At a Pantomime
  120. King Borria Bungalee Boo
  121. The Periwinkle Girl
  122. Thomson Green and Harriet Hale
  123. Bob Polter
  124. The Story of Prince Agib
  125. Ellen M‘jones Aberdeen
  126. Peter the Wag
  127. Ben Allah Achmet; or, The Fatal Tum
  128. The Three Kings of Chickeraboo
  129. Joe Golightly; or, The First Lord’s Daughter
  130. To the Terrestrial Globe
  131. Gentle Alice Brown
  132. The Bumboat Woman’s Story
  133. The Two Ogres
  134. Little Oliver
  135. Mister William
  136. Pasha Bailey Ben
  137. Lieutenant-Colonel Flare
  138. Lost Mr. Blake
  139. The Baby’s Vengeance
  140. The Captain and the Mermaids
  141. Annie Protheroe
  142. An Unfortunate Likeness
  143. Gregory Parable, LL.D.
  144. The King of Canoodle-Dum
  145. First Love
  146. Brave Alum Bey
  147. Sir Barnaby Bampton Boo
  148. The Modest Couple
  149. The Martinet
  150. The Sailor Boy to His Lass
  151. The Reverend Simon Magus
  152. Damon v. Pythias
  153. My Dream
  154. The Bishop of Rum-Ti-Foo Again
  155. A Worm Will Turn
  156. The Haughty Actor
  157. The Two Majors
  158. Emily, John, James, and I
  159. The Perils of Invisibility
  160. Old Paul and Old Tim
  161. The Mystic Selvagee
  162. The Cunning Woman
  163. Phrenology
  164. The Fairy Curate
  165. The Way of Wooing
  166. Hongree and Mahry
  167. Etiquette

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