Poetical Ingenuities and Eccentricities Part 4

And oh! I never did the swell In Regent Street, amongst the beaus, But s.m.u.ts the most prodigious fell, And always settled on my nose!"

Moore's lines have evidently been tempting to the parodists, for Mr.

Calverley and Mr. H. S. Leigh have also written versions: Mr. Leigh's begins thus--

"I never reared a young gazelle (Because, you see, I never tried), But had it known and loved me well, No doubt the creature would have died.

My sick and aged Uncle John Has known me long and loves me well, But still persists in living on-- I would he were a young gazelle."

Shakespeare's soliloquy in Hamlet has been frequently selected as a subject for parody; the first we give being the work of Mr. F. C. Burnand in "Happy Thoughts":

"To sniggle or to dibble, that's the question!

Whether to bait a hook with worm or b.u.mble, Or to take up arms of any sea, some trouble To fish, and then home send 'em. To fly--to whip-- To moor and tie my boat up by the end To any wooden post, or natural rock We may be near to, on a Preservation Devoutly to be fished. To fly--to whip-- To whip! perchance two bream;--and there's the chub!"

CREMATION.

"To Urn, or not to Urn? That is the question: Whether 'tis better in our frames to suffer The shows and follies of outrageous custom, Or to take fire against a sea of zealots, And, by consuming, end them? To Urn--to keep-- No more: and while we keep, to say we end Contagion, and the thousand graveyard ills That flesh is heir to--'tis a consume-ation Devoutly to be wished! To burn--to keep-- To keep! Perchance to lose--ay, there's the rub!

For in the course of things what duns may come, Or who may shuffle off our Dresden urn, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes inter-i-ment of so long use; For who would have the pall and plumes of hire, The tradesman's prize--a proud man's obsequies, The chaffering for graves, the legal fee, The cemetery beadle, and the rest, When he himself might his few ashes make With a mere furnace? Who would tombstones bear, And lie beneath a lying epitaph, But that the dread of simmering after death-- That uncongenial furnace from whose burn No incremate returns--weakens the will, And makes us rather bear the graves we have Than fly to ovens that we know not of?"

The next, on the same subject, is from an American source, where it is introduced by the remark:

"I suppose they'll be wanting us to change our language as well as our habits. Our years will have to be dated A.C., in the year of cremation; and 'from creation to cremation' will serve instead of 'from the cradle to the grave.' We may expect also some lovely elegies in the future--something in the following style perhaps, for, of course, when gravediggers are succeeded by pyre-lighters, the grave laments of yore will be replaced by lighter melodies":

"Above your mantel, in the new screen's shade, Where smokes the coal in one dull, smouldering heap, Each in his patent urn for ever laid, The baked residue of our fathers sleep.

The wheezy call of m.u.f.fins in the morn, The milkman tottering from his rushy sled, The help's shrill clarion, or the fishman's horn, No more shall rouse them from their lofty bed.

For them no more the blazing fire-grate burns, Or busy housewife fries her savoury soles, Though children run to clasp their sires' red urns, And roll them in a family game of bowls.

Perhaps in this deserted pot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, Hands that the rod paternal may have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living liar."

The well-known lady traveller, Mrs. Burton, in one of her volumes gives the following amusing verses:

"What is the black man saying, Brother, the whole day long?

Methinks I hear him praying Ever the self-same song-- _Sa'b meri bakshish do_!

Brother, they are not praying, They are not doing so; The only thing they're saying Is _sa'b meri bakshish do_.

(Gi'e me a 'alfpenny do.)"

To give specimens of all the kinds of parody were impossible, and we can only refer to the prose parodies of Thackeray's "Novels by Eminent Hands,"

and Bret Harte's "Condensed Novels."[6] Renderings of popular ballads in this way are common enough in our comic periodicals, as _Punch_, _Fun_, &c. Indeed, one appeared in _Punch_ a number of years ago, called "Ozokerit," a travesty of Tennyson's "In Memoriam," which has been considered one of the finest ever written. They are to be found, too, in many of those Burlesques and Extravaganzas which are put upon the stage now, and these the late Mr. Planche had a delightful faculty of writing, the happiness and ring of which have rarely been equalled. Take, for instance, one verse of a parody in "Jason" on a well-known air in the "Waterman:"

"Now farewell my trim-built Argo, Greece and Fleece and all, farewell, Never more as supercargo Shall poor Jason cut a swell."

And here is the opening verse of another song by the same author:

"When other lips and other eyes Their tales of love shall tell, Which means the usual sort of lies You've heard from many a swell; When, bored with what you feel is bosh, You'd give the world to see A friend whose love you know will wash, Oh, then, remember me!"

Another very popular song has been parodied in this way by Mr. Carroll:

"Beautiful soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a big tureen!

Who for such dainties would not stoop!

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!"

American papers put in circulation many little verses, such as this--

"The melancholy days have come, The saddest of the year; Too warm, alas! for whiskey punch, Too cold for lager beer."

And this, in reference to the Centennial Exhibition:

"Breathes there a Yank, so mean, so small, Who never says, 'Wall, now, by Gaul, I reckon since old Adam's fall There's never growed on this 'ere ball A nation so all-fired tall As we centennial Yankees."

A number of periodicals nowadays make parody and other out-of-the-way styles of literary composition a feature in their issues by way of compet.i.tion for prizes, and one of these is given here. The author signs himself "Hermon," and the poem was selected by the editor of "Truth"

(November 25, 1880) for a prize in a compet.i.tion of parodies upon "Excelsior." It is called "That Thirty-four!" having reference, it is perhaps hardly necessary to state, to the American puzzle of that name which has proved so perplexing an affair to some people.

THAT THIRTY-FOUR.

"Chill August's storms were piping loud, When through a gaping London crowd, There pa.s.sed a youth, who still was heard To mutter the perplexing word, 'That Thirty-four!'

His eyes were wild; his brow above Was crumpled like an old kid-glove; And like some hoa.r.s.e crow's grating note That word still quivered in his throat, 'That Thirty-four!'

'Oh, give it up!' his comrades said; 'It only muddles your poor head; It is not worth your finding out.'

He answered with a wailing shout, 'That Thirty-four!'

'Art not content,' the maiden said, 'To solve the "Fifteen"-one instead?'

He paused--his tearful eyes he dried-- Gulped down a sob, then sadly sighed, 'That Thirty-four!'

At midnight, on their high resort, The cats were startled at their sport To hear, beneath one roof, a tone Gasp out, betwixt a snore and groan, 'That Thirty-four!'"

_CHAIN VERSE._

This ingenious style of versification, where the last word or phrase in each line is taken for the beginning of the next, is sometimes also called "Concatenation" verse. The invention of this mode of composition is claimed by M. Lasphrise, a French poet, who wrote the following:

"Falloit-il que le ciel me rendit amoreux, Amoreux, jouissant d'une beaute craintive, Craintive a recevoir la douceur excessive, Excessive au plaisir que rend l'amant heureux?

Heureux si nous avions quelques paisibles lieux, Lieux ou plus surement l'ami fidele arrive, Arrive sans soupcon de quelque ami attentive, Attentive a vouloir nous surprendre tous deux."

The poem which follows is from a ma.n.u.script furnished by an American gentleman, who states that he has never seen it in print, and knows not the author's name. The "rhythm somewhat resembles the ticking of a clock,"

from whence the poem derives its name of

THE MUSICAL CLOCK.

"Wing the course of time with music, Music of the grand old days-- Days when hearts were brave and n.o.ble, n.o.ble in their simple ways.

Ways, however rough, yet earnest, Earnest to promote the truth-- Truth that teaches us a lesson, Lesson worthy age and youth.

Youth and age alike may listen-- Listen, meditate, improve-- Improve in happiness and glory, Glory that shall Heavenward move.

Move, as music moves, in pathos, Pathos sweet, and power sublime, Sublime to raise the spirit drooping, Drooping with the toils of time.

Time reveals, amid its grandeur, Grandeur purer, prouder still-- Still revealing dreams of beauty, Beauty that inspires the will-- Will a constant sighing sorrow, Sorrow full of tears restore, Restore but for a moment, pleasure?