Gilbert and Sullivan — Am I alone and unobserved?

(Recitative) Am I alone And unobserved? I am! Then let me own I'm an aesthetic sham! This air severe Is but a mere Veneer! This cynic smile Is but a wile Of guile! This costume chaste Is but good taste Misplaced! Let me confess! A languid love for lilies does not blight me! Lank limbs and haggard cheeks do not delight me! I do not care for dirty greens By any means I do not long for all one sees That's Japanese I am not fond of uttering platitudes In stained-glass attitudes In short, my mediaevalism's affectation Born of a morbid love of admiration! (Aria) 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 ev'rywhere 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 ev'ry one 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 For Art stopped short In the cultivated court Of the Empress Josephine And ev'ryone 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 Piccadilly With a poppy or a lily In your medieval hand And ev'ryone will say As you walk your flow'ry 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!"