General John
The bravest names for fire and flames
And all that mortal durst,
Were GENERAL JOHN and PRIVATE JAMES,
Of the Sixty-seventy-first.
GENERAL JOHN was a soldier tried,
A chief of warlike dons;
A haughty stride and a withering pride
Were MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN'S.
A sneer would play on his martial phiz,
Superior birth to show;
"Pish!" was a favourite word of his,
And he often said "Ho! ho!"
FULL-PRIVATE JAMES described might be,
As a man of a mournful mind;
No characteristic trait had he
Of any distinctive kind.
From the ranks, one day, cried PRIVATE JAMES,
"Oh! MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN,
I've doubts of our respective names,
My mournful mind upon.
"A glimmering thought occurs to me
(Its source I can't unearth),
But I've a kind of a notion we
Were cruelly changed at birth.
"I've a strange idea that each other's names
We've each of us here got on.
Such things have been," said PRIVATE JAMES.
"They have!" sneered GENERAL JOHN.
"My GENERAL JOHN, I swear upon
My oath I think 'tis so - "
"Pish!" proudly sneered his GENERAL JOHN,
And he also said "Ho! ho!"
"My GENERAL JOHN! my GENERAL JOHN!
My GENERAL JOHN!" quoth he,
"This aristocratical sneer upon
Your face I blush to see!
"No truly great or generous cove
Deserving of them names,
Would sneer at a fixed idea that's drove
In the mind of a PRIVATE JAMES!"
[...] Read more
poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
Added by Poetry Lover
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