A
folk song by
Percy French.
The sons of the
Prophet are
brave men and
bold
and quite unaccustomed to
fear,
But the bravest by far in the ranks of the shah,
Was Abdul Abulbul Amir.
If you wanted a man to encourage the van,
Or harass the foe from the rear,
Storm fort or redoubt, you had only to shout
for Abdul Abulbul Amir.
Now the
heroes were plenty and well known to fame
in the troops that were led by the
Czar,
And the bravest of these was a man by the name
of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.
One day this bold
Russian, he shouldered his gun
and donned his most truculent sneer,
Downtown he did go where he trod on the toe
of Abdul Abulbul Amir.
"Young man," quoth Abdul,"has life grown so dull
That you wish to end your career?
Vile
infidel know, you have trod on the toe
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.
So take your last look at the sunshine and brook
And send your regrets to the
Czar
For by this I imply, you are going to die,
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar."
Then this bold
Mameluke drew his trusty
chibouk,
Singing, "Allah! Il Allah! Al-lah!"
And with murderous intent he ferociously went
for Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.
They
parried and
thrust, they side-stepped and
cussed,
Of blood they spilled a great part;
The
philologist blokes, who seldom crack jokes,
Say that
hash was first made on the spot.
They fought all that night neath the pale yellow moon;
The
din, it was heard from afar,
And huge multitudes came, so great was the fame,
of Abdul and Ivan Skavar.
As Abdul's long knife was extracting the life,
In fact he was shouting, "Huzzah!"
He felt himself struck by that wily
Calmuck,
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.
The
Sultan drove by in his red-breasted fly,
Expecting the
victor to cheer,
But he only drew nigh to hear the last sigh,
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.
There's a tomb rises up where the
Blue Danube rolls,
And graved there in characters clear,
Is, "Stranger, when passing, oh pray for the soul
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir."
A splash in the
Black Sea one dark moonless night
Caused ripples to spread wide and far,
It was made by a sack fitting close to the back,
of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.
A
Muscovite maiden her lone vigil keeps,
Neath the light of the cold northern star,
And the name that she murmurs in vain as she weeps,
is Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.