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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.
 
 
But ’tis an unideal,
   Sad world in which we’re born,
And things will “go contrairy”
With Martin and with Mary:
And every day the real
   Comes bleakly in with morn,
And cigarettes have ashes,
   And every rose a thorn.
 

Matrimony

(Matrimony – Advertiser would like to hear from well-educated Protestant lady, under thirty, fair, with view to above, who would have no objection to work Remington type-writer, at home. Enclose photo. T. 99. This Office. Cork newspaper.)

 
T. 99 would gladly hear
   From one whose years are few,
A maid whose doctrines are severe,
   Of Presbyterian blue,
Also – with view to the above —
   Her photo he would see,
And trusts that she may live and love
   His Protestant to be!
But ere the sacred rites are done
   (And by no Priest of Rome)
He’d ask, if she a Remington
   Type-writer works – at home?
 
 
If she have no objections to
   This task, and if her hair —
In keeping with her eyes of blue —
   Be delicately fair,
Ah, then, let her a photo send
   Of all her charms divine,
To him who rests her faithful friend,
   Her own T. 99.
 

Piscatori Piscator

In Memory of Thomas Tod Stoddart

 
An angler to an angler here,
   To one who longed not for the bays,
I bring a little gift and dear,
   A line of love, a word of praise,
A common memory of the ways,
   By Elibank and Yair that lead;
Of all the burns, from all the braes,
   That yield their tribute to the Tweed.
 
 
His boyhood found the waters clean,
   His age deplored them, foul with dye;
But purple hills, and copses green,
   And these old towers he wandered by,
Still to the simple strains reply
   Of his pure unrepining reed,
Who lies where he was fain to lie,
   Like Scott, within the sound of Tweed.