First Love



A clergyman in Berkshire dwelt,
The REVEREND BERNARD POWLES,
And in his church there weekly knelt
At least a hundred souls.

There little ELLEN you might see,
The modest rustic belle;
In maidenly simplicity,
She loved her BERNARD well.

Though ELLEN wore a plain silk gown
Untrimmed with lace or fur,
Yet not a husband in the town
But wished his wife like her.

Though sterner memories might fade,
You never could forget
The child-form of that baby-maid,
The Village Violet!

A simple frightened loveliness,
Whose sacred spirit-part
Shrank timidly from worldly stress,
And nestled in your heart.

POWLES woo'd with every well-worn plan
And all the usual wiles
With which a well-schooled gentleman
A simple heart beguiles.

The hackneyed compliments that bore
World-folks like you and me,
Appeared to her as if they wore
The crown of Poesy.

His winking eyelid sang a song
Her heart could understand,
Eternity seemed scarce too long
When BERNARD squeezed her hand.

He ordered down the martial crew
Of GODFREY'S Grenadiers,
And COOTE conspired with TINNEY to
Ecstaticise her ears.

Beneath her window, veiled from eye,
They nightly took their stand;
On birthdays supplemented by
The Covent Garden band.

And little ELLEN, all alone,
Enraptured sat above,
And thought how blest she was to own
The wealth of POWLES'S love.

I often, often wonder what
Poor ELLEN saw in him;
For calculated he was NOT
To please a woman's whim.

He wasn't good, despite the air
An M.B. waistcoat gives;
Indeed, his dearest friends declare
No greater humbug lives.

No kind of virtue decked this priest,
He'd nothing to allure;
He wasn't handsome in the least, -
He wasn't even poor.

No - he was cursed with acres fat
(A Christian's direst ban),
And gold - yet, notwithstanding that,
Poor ELLEN loved the man.

As unlike BERNARD as could be
Was poor old AARON WOOD
(Disgraceful BERNARD'S curate he):
He was extremely good.

A BAYARD in his moral pluck
Without reproach or fear,
A quiet venerable duck
With fifty pounds a year.

No fault had he - no fad, except
A tendency to strum,
In mode at which you would have wept,
A dull harmonium.

He had no gold with which to hire
The minstrels who could best
Convey a notion of the fire
That raged within his breast.

And so, when COOTE and TINNEY'S Own
Had tootled all they knew,
And when the Guards, completely blown,
Exhaustedly withdrew,

And NELL began to sleepy feel,
Poor AARON then would come,
And underneath her window wheel
His plain harmonium.

He woke her every morn at two,
And having gained her ear,
In vivid colours AARON drew
The sluggard's grim career.

He warbled Apiarian praise,
And taught her in his chant
To shun the dog's pugnacious ways,
And imitate the ant.

Still NELL seemed not, how much he played,
To love him out and out,
Although the admirable maid
Respected him, no doubt.

She told him of her early vow,
And said as BERNARD'S wife
It might be hers to show him how
To rectify his life.

"You are so pure, so kind, so true,
Your goodness shines so bright,
What use would ELLEN be to you?
Believe me, you're all right."

She wished him happiness and health,
And flew on lightning wings
To BERNARD with his dangerous wealth
And all the woes it brings.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:53 min read
65

Quick analysis:

Scheme Text too long
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 3,076
Words 564
Stanzas 27
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

William Schwenck Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist librettist poet and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan of which the most famous include HMS Pinafore The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre The Mikado These as well as most of their other Savoy operas continue to be performed regularly throughout the English-speaking world and beyond by opera companies repertory companies schools and community theatre groups Lines from these works have become part of the English language such as short sharp shock What never Well hardly ever and Let the punishment fit the crime Gilbert also wrote the Bab Ballads an extensive collection of light verse accompanied by his own comical drawings His creative output included over 75 plays and libretti numerous stories poems lyrics and various other comic and serious pieces His plays and realistic style of stage direction inspired other dramatists including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw According to The Cambridge History of English and American Literature Gilberts lyrical facility and his mastery of metre raised the poetical quality of comic opera to a position that it had never reached before and has not reached since Source - Wikipedia more…

All William Schwenck Gilbert poems | William Schwenck Gilbert Books

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