Songs of a Savoyard | Page 9

profession.
There are one or two rules,
Half-a-dozen,
maybe,
That all family fools,
Of whatever degree,
Must observe if
they love their profession.
If you wish to succeed as a jester, you'll need
To consider each
person's auricular:
What is all right for B would quite scandalise C

(For C is so very particular);
And D may be dull, and E's very thick
skull
Is as empty of brains as a ladle;
While F is F sharp, and will
cry with a carp,
That he's known your best joke from his cradle!

When your humour they flout,
You can't let yourself go;
And it
DOES put you out
When a person says, "Oh!
I have known that old
joke from my cradle!"
If your master is surly, from getting up early
(And tempers are short
in the morning),
An inopportune joke is enough to provoke
Him to
give you, at once, a month's warning.
Then if you refrain, he is at you
again,
For he likes to get value for money:

He'll ask then and there,
with an insolent stare,
"If you know that you're paid to be funny?"
It
adds to the tasks
Of a merryman's place,
When your principal asks,

With a scowl on his face,
If you know that you're paid to be funny?

Comes a Bishop, maybe, or a solemn D.D. -
Oh, beware of his anger
provoking!
Better not pull his hair - don't stick pins in his chair;
He
won't understand practical joking.
If the jests that you crack have an
orthodox smack,
You may get a bland smile from these sages;
But
should it, by chance, be imported from France,
Half-a-crown is
stopped out of your wages!
It's a general rule,
Though your zeal it
may quench,
If the Family Fool
Makes a joke that's TOO French,

Half-a-crown is stopped out of his wages!
Though your head it may rack with a bilious attack,
And your senses
with toothache you're losing,
And you're mopy and flat - they don't
fine you for that
If you're properly quaint and amusing!
Though
your wife ran away with a soldier that day,
And took with her your
trifle of money;
Bless your heart, they don't mind - they're
exceedingly kind - They don't blame you - as long as you're funny!

It's a comfort to feel
If your partner should flit,
Though YOU suffer
a deal,
THEY don't mind it a bit -
They don't blame you - so long as
you're funny!
Ballad: Sans Souci
I cannot tell what this love may be
That cometh to all but not to me.

It cannot be kind as they'd imply,
Or why do these gentle ladies
sigh?
It cannot be joy and rapture deep,
Or why do these gentle
ladies weep?
It cannot be blissful, as 'tis said,
Or why are their eyes
so wondrous red?
If love is a thorn, they show no wit
Who foolishly hug and foster it.

If love is a weed, how simple they
Who gather and gather it, day by
day!
If love is a nettle that makes you smart,
Why do you wear it
next your heart?
And if it be neither of these, say I,
Why do you sit
and sob and sigh?
Ballad: A Recipe

Take a pair of sparkling eyes,
Hidden, ever and anon,
In a merciful
eclipse -
Do not heed their mild surprise -
Having passed the
Rubicon.
Take a pair of rosy lips;
Take a figure trimly planned -

Such as admiration whets
(Be particular in this);
Take a tender little
hand,
Fringed with dainty fingerettes,
Press it - in parenthesis; -

Take all these, you lucky man -
Take and keep them, if you can.
Take a pretty little cot -
Quite a miniature affair -
Hung about with
trellised vine,
Furnish it upon the spot
With the treasures rich and
rare
I've endeavoured to define.
Live to love and love to live -

You will ripen at your ease,
Growing on the sunny side -
Fate has
nothing more to give.
You're a dainty man to please
If you are not
satisfied.
Take my counsel, happy man:
Act upon it, if you can!
Ballad: The Merryman And His Maid
[HE] I have a song to sing, O!
[SHE] Sing me your song, O!
[HE]
It is sung to the moon
By a love-lorn loon,
Who fled from the
mocking throng, O!
It's the song of a merryman, moping mum,

Whose soul was sad, whose glance was glum,
Who sipped no sup,
and who craved no crumb,
As he sighed for the love of a ladye.

Heighdy! heighdy!
Misery me - lackadaydee!
He sipped no sup,
and he craved no crumb,
As he sighed for the love of a ladye!
[SHE] I have a song to sing, O!
[HE] Sing me your song, O!
[SHE]
It is sung with the ring
Of the song maids sing

Who love with a
love life-long, O!
It's the song of a merrymaid, peerly proud,
Who
loved a lord, and who laughed aloud
At the moan of the merryman,
moping mum,
Whose soul was sore, whose glance was glum,
Who
sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb,
As he sighed for the love of
a ladye!
Heighdy! heighdy!
Misery me - lackadaydee!
He sipped
no sup, and he craved no crumb,
As he sighed for the love of a ladye!
[HE] I have a song to sing, O!
[SHE] Sing me your song, O!
[HE]

It is sung to