The Bachelors’ Strike by W. S. Gilbert

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The Bachelors' Strike

(TO BE WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1905)

Fun, I - 22nd July 1865

'Twas early in July,
	In eighteen sixty-five,
When a tribe of males from old Marseilles
	Declared they never would wive.

For they thought on the costly style
	Of shawls and bonnets and veils,
And they saw with amaze the expensive ways
	Of the damsels of old Marseilles

They vowed they'd marry no maid
	Unless she'd dress her more
In the cheap and chaste and simple taste
	Of two hundred years before.

But centuries twain before,
	As painted pictures show,
All dress was dear, and the bodies, I hear,
	Were worn extremely low.

But none of the men of Marseilles
	Had histories on their shelves;
But, strong in the heat of their blind conceit,
	They chuckled within themselves.

And there rose from old Marseilles
	A cry from the maiden crew,
"Six thousand head of girls to wed,
	And nobody comes to woo!

"Oh, come, ye knights of France,
	And knights of England true,
And teach these loons to dance to the tunes
	They'd have us dancing to!"

And three thousand British knights,
	And as many knights of France,
Came down on rails to old Marseilles
	To teach these cravens dance.

They smote them hip and thigh,
	And then each warrior true
Embraced his prize before the eyes
	Of the mercenary crew.

And having fairly done
	The task to them assigned,
Each rode away, as the stories say,
	With a maiden packed behind.

And the dreary, dreary tribe
	Of cravens are still alive,
Though years have gone by since that July,
	In eighteen sixty-five.

And none will make their beds,
	And none will scour and wipe,
And no little trippers will bring out their slippers,
	And fill their evening pipe.

And an awful story goes,
	That there's a stern decree,
That swear as they may, to their dying day,
	No button they e'er shall see!

MORAL

So fools reject a prize,
	And, offered wealth, disdain it,
Because that they object to pay
	For the caskets that contain it.

So fools — such fools are they,
	They're scarcely worthy blaming —
Decline the care of a picture rare
	Because it involves a framing.

So many a fool we find
	So blindly wed to Mammon,
That the foolish flat begrudges the sprat
	That he knows will hook a salmon.

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