Am I Alone And Unobserved? Lyrics

(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!"

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