Poetical Ingenuities and Eccentricities Part 3

Oh, hasten--oh, let us not linger-- Oh, fly--let us fly--ere we must!'

In terror she cried, letting sink her Parasol till it trailed in the dust,-- In agony sobbed, letting sink her Parasol till it trailed in the dust,-- Till it sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

Then I pacified Mary and kissed her, And tempted her into the room, And conquered her scruples and gloom; And we pa.s.sed to the end of the vista, But were stopped by the warning of doom,-- By some words that were warning of doom.

And I said, 'What is written, sweet sister, At the opposite end of the room?'

She sobbed as she answered, 'All liquors Must be paid for ere leaving the room.'"

Mr. Calverley is perhaps one of the best of the later parodists, and he hits off Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, Coventry Patmore, and others most inimitably. We give a couple of verses from one, a parody of his upon a well-known lyric of Tennyson's, and few we think after perusing it would be able to read "The Brook" without its murmur being a.s.sociated with the wandering tinker:

"I loiter down by thorp and town; For any job I'm willing; Take here and there a dusty brown And here and there a s.h.i.+lling.

Thus on he prattled, like a babbling brook, Then I; 'The sun has slept behind the hill, And my Aunt Vivian dines at half-past six.'

So in all love we parted: I to the Hall, They to the village. It was noised next noon That chickens had been missed at Syllabub Farm."

Mr. Tennyson's "Home they brought her warrior dead," has likewise been differently travestied by various writers. One of these by Mr. Sawyer is given here:

THE RECOGNITION.

"Home they brought her sailor son, Grown a man across the sea, Tall and broad and black of beard, And hoa.r.s.e of voice as man may be.

Hand to shake and mouth to kiss, Both he offered ere he spoke; But she said, 'What man is this Comes to play a sorry joke?'

Then they praised him--call'd him 'smart,'

'Tightest lad that ever stept;'

But her son she did not know, And she neither smiled nor wept.

Rose, a nurse of ninety years, Set a pigeon-pie in sight; She saw him eat--''Tis he! 'tis he!'-- She knew him--by his appet.i.te!"

"The May-Queen" has also suffered in some verses called "The Biter Bit,"

of which these are the last four lines:

"You may lay me in my bed, mother--my head is throbbing sore; And, mother, prithee let the sheets be duly aired before; And if you'd do a kindness to your poor desponding child, Draw me a pot of beer, mother--and, mother, draw it mild!"

Mr. Calverley has imitated well also the old ballad style, as in this one, of which we give the opening verses:

"It was a railway pa.s.senger, And he leapt out jauntilie.

'Now up and bear, thou proud porter, My two chattels to me.

'And fetch me eke a cabman bold, That I may be his fare, his fare: And he shall have a good s.h.i.+lling, If by two of the clock he do me bring To the terminus, Euston Square.'

'Now,--so to thee the Saints alway, Good gentlemen, give luck,-- As never a cab may I find this day, For the cabmen wights have struck:

And now, I wis, at the Red Post Inn, Or else at the Dog and Duck, Or at Unicorn Blue, or at Green Griffin, The nut-brown ale and the fine old gin Right pleasantlie they do suck.'"...

The following imitation of the old ballad form is by Mr. Lewis Carroll, who has written many capital versions of different poems:

YE CARPETTE KNYGHTE.

"I have a horse--a ryghte good horse-- Ne doe I envie those Who scoure ye plaine in headie course, Tyll soddaine on theyre nose They lyghte wyth unexpected force-- It ys--a horse of clothes.

I have a saddel--'Say'st thou soe?

Wyth styrruppes, knyghte, to boote?'

I sayde not that--I answere 'Noe'-- Yt lacketh such, I woot-- Yt ys a mutton-saddel, loe!

Parte of ye fleecie brute.

I have a bytte--a right good bytte-- As schall be seen in time.

Ye jawe of horse yt wyll not fytte-- Yts use ys more sublyme.

Fayre Syr, how deemest thou of yt?

Yt ys--thys bytte of rhyme."

In "Alice in Wonderland,"[4] by the same gentleman, there is this new version of an old nursery ditty:

"'Will you walk a little faster?' said a whiting to a snail, 'There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.

See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!

They are waiting on the s.h.i.+ngle--will you come and join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?

'You can really have no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us with the lobsters out to sea!'

But the snail replied, 'Too far, too far!' and gave a look askance, Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.

Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance, Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

'What matters it how far we go?' his scaly friend replied; 'There is another sh.o.r.e, you know, upon the other side.

The farther off from England the nearer is to France-- Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?'"

Mr. Carroll's adaptation of "You are old, Father William," is one of the best of its cla.s.s, and here are two verses:

"'You are old, Father William,' the young man said, 'And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head-- Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son, 'I feared it might injure the brain; But now I am perfectly sure I have none-- Why, I do it again and again!'

'You are old,' said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak-- Pray, how do you manage to do it?'

'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw Has lasted the rest of my life.'"[5]

Mr. H. Cholmondeley-Pennell in "Puck on Pegasus" gives some good examples, such as that on the "Hiawatha" of Longfellow, the "Song of In-the-Water,"

and also that on Southey's "How the Waters come down at Lodore," the parody being called "How the Daughters come down at Dunoon," of which these are the concluding lines:

"Feathers a-flying all--bonnets untying all-- Crinolines rapping and flapping and slapping all, Balmorals dancing and glancing entrancing all,-- Feats of activity-- Nymphs on declivity-- Sweethearts in ecstasies-- Mothers in vextasies-- Lady-loves whisking and frisking and clinging on, True lovers puffing and blowing and springing on, Flus.h.i.+ng and blus.h.i.+ng and wriggling and giggling on, Teasing and pleasing and wheezing and squeezing on, Everlastingly falling and bawling and sprawling on, Flurrying and worrying and hurrying and skurrying on, Tottering and staggering and lumbering and slithering on, Any fine afternoon About July or June-- That's just how the Daughters Come down at Dunoon!"

"Twas ever thus," the well-known lines of Moore, has also been travestied by Mr. H. C. Pennell:

"Wus! ever wus! By freak of Puck's My most exciting hopes are dashed; I never wore my spotless ducks But madly--wildly--they were splashed!

I never roved by Cynthia's beam, To gaze upon the starry sky; But some old stiff-backed beetle came, And charged into my pensive eye: