“It is D’Oyly Carte,” he muttered, “ringing at my big front door,
Merely this and nothing more.”
Poking then the glowing ember, for ’twas cold as bleak December,
Gilbert said “Ah, I remember in the olden time of yore,
Yea, and shall forget it never, though I were to live for ever,
How I vainly did endeavour once to see my ‘Pinafore,’
Sat and suffered awful anguish in the stalls at ‘Pinafore,’
Just that once, but nevermore.”
“For the feeling—sad, uncertain—at the rising of the curtain,
Thrilled me, filled me with such terrors, that a solemn oath I swore,