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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=538941" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Ferdinando and Elvira</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">PART I.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supper<br>One whom I will call ELVIRA, and we talked of love and TUPPER,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">MR. TUPPER and the Poets, very lightly with them dealing,<br>For I've always been distinguished for a strong poetic feeling.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto,<br>And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not <br>to.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then she whispered, "To the ball-room we had better, dear, be <br>walking;<br>If we stop down here much longer, really people will be talking."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There were noblemen in coronets, and military cousins,<br>There were captains by the hundred, there were baronets by dozens.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet she heeded not their offers, but dismissed them with a <br>blessing,<br>Then she let down all her back hair, which had taken long in <br>dressing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then she had convulsive sobbings in her agitated throttle,<br>Then she wiped her pretty eyes and smelt her pretty smelling-<br>bottle.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So I whispered, "Dear ELVIRA, say, - what can the matter be with <br>you?<br>Does anything you've eaten, darling POPSY, disagree with you?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But spite of all I said, her sobs grew more and more distressing,<br>And she tore her pretty back hair, which had taken long in <br>dressing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then she gazed upon the carpet, at the ceiling, then above me,<br>And she whispered, "FERDINANDO, do you really, REALLY love me?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Love you?" said I, then I sighed, and then I gazed upon her <br>sweetly -<br>For I think I do this sort of thing particularly neatly.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Send me to the Arctic regions, or illimitable azure,<br>On a scientific goose-chase, with my COXWELL or my GLAISHER!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Tell me whither I may hie me - tell me, dear one, that I may know <br>-<br>Is it up the highest Andes? down a horrible volcano?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But she said, "It isn't polar bears, or hot volcanic grottoes:<br>Only find out who it is that writes those lovely cracker mottoes!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>PART II.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>"Tell me, HENRY WADSWORTH, ALFRED POET CLOSE, or MISTER TUPPER,<br>Do you write the bon bon mottoes my ELVIRA pulls at supper?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But HENRY WADSWORTH smiled, and said he had not had that honour;<br>And ALFRED, too, disclaimed the words that told so much upon her.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"MISTER MARTIN TUPPER, POET CLOSE, I beg of you inform us;"<br>But my question seemed to throw them both into a rage enormous.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">MISTER CLOSE expressed a wish that he could only get anigh to me;<br>And MISTER MARTIN TUPPER sent the following reply to me:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit," -<br>Which I know was very clever; but I didn't understand it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Seven weary years I wandered - Patagonia, China, Norway,<br>Till at last I sank exhausted at a pastrycook his doorway.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There were fuchsias and geraniums, and daffodils and myrtle,<br>So I entered, and I ordered half a basin of mock turtle.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He was plump and he was chubby, he was smooth and he was rosy,<br>And his little wife was pretty and particularly cosy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And he chirped and sang, and skipped about, and laughed with <br>laughter hearty -<br>He was wonderfully active for so very stout a party.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And I said, "O gentle pieman, why so very, very merry?<br>Is it purity of conscience, or your one-and-seven sherry?"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But he answered, "I'm so happy - no profession could be dearer -<br>If I am not humming 'Tra! la! la!' I'm singing 'Tirer, lirer!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"First I go and make the patties, and the puddings, and the <br>jellies,<br>Then I make a sugar bird-cage, which upon a table swell is;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Then I polish all the silver, which a supper-table lacquers;<br>Then I write the pretty mottoes which you find inside the <br>crackers." -</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Found at last!" I madly shouted. "Gentle pieman, you astound me!"<br>Then I waved the turtle soup enthusiastically round me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And I shouted and I danced until he'd quite a crowd around him -<br>And I rushed away exclaiming, "I have found him! I have found <br>him!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And I heard the gentle pieman in the road behind me trilling,<br>"'Tira, lira!' stop him, stop him! 'Tra! la! la!' the soup's a <br>shilling!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But until I reached ELVIRA'S home, I never, never waited,<br>And ELVIRA to her FERDINAND'S irrevocably mated!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Schwenck+Gilbert">William Schwenck Gilbert</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=538941" data-title="Ferdinando and Elvira de William Schwenck Gilbert" data-description="PART I. At a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supper One whom I will call ELVIRA, and we talked of love and TUPPER, MR. TUPPER and the Poets, very lightly with them dealing, For I've always been distinguished for a strong poetic feelin..."></div> </div> </div>
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