Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, February 1922 · page 45 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #30 — page 45: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains a sentimental poem—not a cartoon—titled "Captain Billy's Whiz Bang," a popular American humor magazine from the 1920s-30s. The poem dramatizes an illicit affair from the woman's perspective. She justifies their "sinning" as rooted in pure love, but recognizes their relationship must end. Her reasoning combines self-sacrifice (she'll leave before he tires of her fading beauty) with melodramatic fatalism (she imagines dying forgotten in the streets, hoping divine salvation through Christ's blood). The final stanza offers romantic reconciliation: they'll reunite in heaven, absolved because their sin stemmed from love rather than wickedness. The piece typifies Whiz Bang's mix of bawdy humor and sentimental moralizing—simultaneously acknowledging sexual transgression while providing religious redemption, appealing to readers' emotions rather than their sense of propriety.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 43 And swore by the heavens above That the Lord and all of his Angels Would sanction and bless our love, And I? I was weak, not wicked. My love was as pure as true, And sin itself seemed a virtue, If only shared by you. We have been happy together, Though under the cloud of sin But I know that the day approaches When my chastening must begin, You seem to think kindly of me But you seem downhearted and blue, But you will not always be And I think I had better leave you. I know my beauty is fading, Sin furrows the fairest brow, And I know your heart will weary, Of the face you smile on now. You will take a bride on your bosom, After you turn from me, You will sit with your wife in the moon-light And hold your babe on your knee. Oh! God I could not bear it, I would my brain I know, And while you love me dearly, I think I had better go. It is sweeter to feel my darling And know as I fall asleep That some would mourn me and miss me That someone was left to weep. Though to die as I should in the future, To drop in the streets some day, Unknown, unwept and forgotten, After you passed me away. Perhaps the blood of the Savior, Can wash my garments clean, Perchance I may drift on the water, That flows in the pastures green. Perchance we may meet in heaven, And walk in the street above, With nothing to grieve us or part us, Since our sinning was all through love.