When We Played Pinafore

Sometimes a fellow’s mind will run way off to bygone days,

And leave him standing face to face with boyhood’s simple ways;

And so my thoughts this winter’s night have wandered off to yore,

Way back to when in Jones’s barn we played at Pinafore.

The lamp is low, the coals are bright, the wintry wind storms wild,

And she, within the chamber near, sleeps peaceful as a child;

And so with weary pen aside, which I can use no more,

I’m going home again tonight to play at Pinafore.

In Jones’s barn I still can see the curtain hanging there,

Made out of patched up carpets which I ween we stole somewhere;

The stage, and its crude settings, and the almost empty floor

Where children huddled breathlessly to witness Pinafore.

O those scenes they touch my feelings, and I live again the past;

‘Twas but a little while ago, the years fly on so fast.

And I sometimes pass the playhouse in my country strolls today

And I wonder where the stage is and the actors – where are they?

O “gentle Captain Corcoran,” I know where you have gone;

Where hearts are filled with music, where the nights are always morn;

You were a loving brother, and were later lost at sea,

And were a sailor boy at last in stern reality.

Dick Deadeye, and the others, O, where are they tonight?

God grant that they are playing where their lives are true and right.

And Josephine, dear creature, my sweetheart in the play,

For I was Ralph her lover, and liked the part they say.

And I loved her well and truly, as I told her time again,

And she a year my junior and I a lad of ten!

And tho’ I wed another, I’m sure she wouldn’t scold,

If she knew tonight my dreaming was of Josephine of old.

Of Josephine my sweetheart in that foolish play of ours,

But memory hovers round it like a bee around the flowers;

And tho’ I have rich fancies of the good old days of yore,

There’s none so rich as Jones’s barn, where we played Pinafore.

Nov. 23, 1895

Pub. in Dramatic News,

    Dec. 7, ‘95

(Joe Cone’s older brother, Lester Raymond Cone, drowned off Montauk Point on February 18, 1882)

H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical theatre piece up to that time. H.M.S. Pinafore was Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth operatic collaboration and their first international sensation.

The story takes place aboard the ship HMS Pinafore. The captain's daughter, Josephine, is in love with a lower-class sailor, Ralph Rackstraw, although her father intends her to marry Sir Joseph Porter, the First Lord of the Admiralty. She abides by her father's wishes at first, but Sir Joseph's advocacy of the equality of humankind encourages Ralph and Josephine to overturn conventional social order. They declare their love for each other and eventually plan to elope. The captain discovers this plan, but, as in many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, a surprise disclosure changes things dramatically near the end of the story.

Drawing on several of his earlier "Bab Ballad" poems, Gilbert imbued this plot with mirth and silliness. The opera's humour focuses on love between members of different social classes and lampoons the British class system in general. Pinafore also pokes good-natured fun at patriotism, party politics, the Royal Navy, and the rise of unqualified people to positions of authority. The title of the piece comically applies the name of a garment for girls and women, a pinafore, to the fearsome symbol of a naval warship.

Pinafore's extraordinary popularity in Britain, America and elsewhere was followed by the similar success of a series of Gilbert and Sullivan works, including The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. Their works, later known as the Savoy operas, dominated the musical stage on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a decade and continue to be performed today. The structure and style of these operas, particularly Pinafore, were much copied and contributed significantly to the development of modern musical theatre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.M.S._Pinafore