Gilbert and Sullivan Archive

The Bab Ballads

You are here: Archive Home > Bab Ballads > Sea-Side Snobs

Sea-Side Snobs

Fun, IV - 9th November 1867


Illustration by Gilbert
Extended on the Margate shore
  (A lazy fit had bound me),
I fell a-moralizing o'er
  The snobs I saw around me.

They buy unholy suits of clothes,
  And every day they don them,
Their speech is crapulous with oaths.
  But still the sun shines on them'.

They bawl and holloa, scream and shout,
  Some source of joy they find it —
And though they leave their "h's" out
  The sea don't seem to mind it!

They spit, and smoke tobacco rank.,
  And live incontinently,
And though they look as if they drank —
  The sea air fans them gently!

The words with which themselves they pledge
  Cause decent ears to tingle;
But though it sets one's teeth on edge,
  It don't offend the shingle!

Their showy clothes are slopped with mire,
  Their paws with filth encrusted —
I wonder Nature don't retire
  From public life disgusted.

The sun shines on, the breezes blow,
  When shops and counters free them —
The waves dance gaily to and fro,
  And seem quite glad to see them!

Oh, sun and breeze and dancing trees,
  In one commingling blended,
You are not difficult to please —
  Not easily offended.

Archive Home  |  W. S. Gilbert  |   Bab Ballads

Page Created 30 July, 2011