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Title: The Aesthete
Author: W. S. Gilbert [
More Titles by Gilbert]
If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line,
as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms,
and plant them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your
complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter
of a transcendental kind.
And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man
this deep young man must be!"
Be eloquent in praise of the very dull old days which have
long since passed away,
And convince 'em if you can, that the reign of good Queen Anne was
Culture's palmiest day.
Of course you will pooh-pooh whatever's fresh and new, and
declare it's crude and mean,
And that art stopped short in the cultivated court
of the Empress Josephine,
And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If that's not good enough for him which is good enough for me,
Why, what a very cultivated kind of youth
this kind of youth must be!"
Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must
excite your languid spleen,
An attachment a la Plato for a bashful young potato,
or a not-too-French French bean.
Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle
in the high aesthetic band,
If you walk down Picadilly with a poppy or a lily in your mediaeval hand.
And everyone will say,
As you walk your flowery way,
"If he's content with a vegetable love which would certainly not
suit me,
Why, what a most particularly pure young man
this pure young man must be!"
[The end]
W. S. Gilbert's poem: Aesthete
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