Part 6

This was our learned fathers’ wont In prehistoric times, We follow it, or if we don’t, We oft run short of rhymes.

Rhyme of Oxford Cockney Rhymes.

(Exhibited in the Oxford Magazine.)

THOUGH Keats rhymed “ear” to “Cytherea,” And Morris “dawn” to “morn,” A worse example, it is clear, By Oxford Dons is “shorn.” G—y, of Magdalen, goes beyond These puny Cockneys far, And to “Magrath” rhymes—Muse despond!— “Magrath” he rhymes to “star”!

Another poet, X. Y. Z., Employs the word “researcher,” And then,—his blood be on his head,— He makes it rhyme to “nurture.” Ah, never was the English tongue So flayed, and racked, and tortured, Since one I love (who should be hung) Made “tortured” rhyme to “orchard.”

Unkindly G—y’s raging pen Next craves a rhyme to “sooner;” Rejecting “Spooner,” (best of men,) He fastens on lacuna(r). Nay, worse, in his infatuate mind He ends a line “explainer,” Nor any rhyme can G—y find Until he reaches Jena(r).

Yes, G—y shines the worst of all, He needs to rhyme “embargo;” The man had “Margot” at his call, He had the good ship Argo; Largo he had; yet doth he seek Further, and no embargo Restrains him from the odious, weak, And Cockney rhyme, “Chicago”!

Ye Oxford Dons that Cockneys be, Among your gardens tidy, If you would ask a maid to tea, D’ye call the girl “a lydy”? And if you’d sing of Mr. Fry, And need a rhyme to “swiper,” Are you so cruel as to try To fill the blank with “paper”?

Oh, Hoxford was a pleasant plice To many a poet dear, And Saccharissa had the grice In Hoxford to appear. But Waller, if to Cytherea He prayed at any time, Did not implore “her friendly ear,” And think he had a rhyme.

Now, if you ask to what are due The horrors which I mention, I think we owe them to the U- Niversity extension. From Hoxton and from Poplar come The ’Arriets and ’Arries, And so the Oxford Muse is dumb, Or, when she sings, miscarries.

Rococo.

(“My name is also named ‘Played Out.’”)

When first we heard Rossetti sing, We twanged the melancholy lyre, We sang like this, like anything, When first we heard Rossetti sing. And all our song was faded Spring, And dead delight and dark desire, When first we heard Rossetti sing, We twanged the melancholy lyre.

(And this is how we twanged it)—

The New Orpheus to his Eurydice.

WHY wilt thou woo, ah, strange Eurydice, A languid laurell’d Orpheus in the shades, For here is company of shadowy maids, Hero, and Helen and Psamathoë:

And life is like the blossom on the tree, And never tumult of the world invades, The low light wanes and waxes, flowers and fades, And sleep is sweet, and dreams suffice for me;

“Go back, and seek the sunlight,” as of old, The wise ghost-mother of Odysseus said, Here am I half content, and scarce a-cold, But one light fits the living, one the dead; Good-bye, be glad, forget! thou canst not hold In thy kind arms, alas! this powerless head.

When first we heard Rossetti sing, We also wrote this kind of thing!

The Food of Fiction.

TO breakfast, dinner, or to lunch My steps are languid, once so speedy; E’en though, like the old gent in Punch, “Not hungry, but, thank goodness! greedy.” I gaze upon the well-spread board, And have to own—oh, contradiction! Though every dainty it afford, There’s nothing like the food of fiction.

“The better half”—how good the sound! Of Scott’s or Ainsworth’s “venison pasty,” In cups of old Canary drowned, (Which probably was very nasty). The beefsteak pudding made by Ruth To cheer Tom Pinch in his affliction, Ah me, in all the world of truth, There’s nothing like the food of fiction!

The cakes and ham and buttered toast That graced the board of Gabriel Varden, In Bracebridge Hall the Christmas roast, Fruits from the Goblin Market Garden. And if you’d eat of luscious sweets And yet escape from gout’s infliction, Just read “St. Agnes’ Eve” by Keats— There’s nothing like the food of fiction.

What cups of tea were ever brewed Like Sairey Gamp’s—the dear old sinner? What savoury mess was ever stewed Like that for Short’s and Codlin’s dinner? What was the flavour of that “poy”— To use the Fotheringay’s own diction— Pendennis ate, the love-sick boy? There’s nothing like the food of fiction.

Prince, you are young—but you will find After life’s years of fret and friction, That hunger wanes—but never mind! There’s nothing like the food of fiction.

“A Highly Valuable chain of Thoughts.”

HAD cigarettes no ashes, And roses ne’er a thorn, No man would be a funker Of whin, or burn, or bunker. There were no need for mashies, The turf would ne’er be torn, Had cigarettes no ashes, And roses ne’er a thorn.

Had cigarettes no ashes, And roses ne’er a thorn, The big trout would not ever Escape into the river. No gut the salmon smashes Would leave us all forlorn, Had cigarettes no ashes, And roses ne’er a thorn.