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(By a Swinburnean Lofty Liner.)

IMPARADISED by my environment,
In rhymes impeccably good,

Let me scribble, as poor proud Byron meant
To have scribbled, if he could!

I'll strain, as the sinuous cameleopard
Strains after the blossomy bough,
And with faculties that develop hard
Let me write-I can't say how.

Impish idiom's idiosyncrasy

Shall my verse festoon with flowers;
In a kingdom of pen-and-inkrasy

I shall wield prosodian powers.
Through innumerous apotheoses
The future my name shall learn,
And like passionate plethoric peonies
My perpetual poems burn.

Let my glory grow as the icicle
Accrues between night and morn;
As the bicyclist rides his bicycle
Let me on my metre be borne.
Flashing thus on verses vehicular,
With Pegasus 'neath my touch,
My method can't be too particular,
Nor the public see too much.

The critics are all anthropophagous,
And feed on poetic flesh;

My heart nestles in my esophagous,
To think I've been in their mesh.
As vessels that sail on the Bosphorus
Catch Constantinople's beams,

So my soul from prosody's phosphorus
Still gathers Dædalian gleams.

Funny Folks, May 11, 1878.

The Family Herald (London) for July 28, 1888, contained an amusing article on Parodies, from which the following is an extract:

"But we wish to get away from well-trodden tracks, and we will for once forsake our usual purely didactic groove in order that we may give our readers an idea of what we regard as artistic drollery, Take this dreadful imitation of Mr. Swinburne's manner. The parodist seems to have genuinely enjoyed his work; and we have no doubt but that Mr. Swinburne laughed as heartily as anybody. The poet is supposed to be attending a wedding of distinguished persons in Westminster Abbey, and the naughty scoffer represents him as bursting forth with the following rather alarming clarion call

THERE is glee in the groves of the Galilean—

The groves that were wont to be gray and glum—
And a sound goes forth to the dim Ægean,
To Helen hopeless and Dido dumb-

The sound of a noise of cab or carriage,
A rhythm of rapture, a mode of marriage.
Sing "Hallelujah!" Shout "Io Paan!"
Hymen-O Hymen, behold, they come !

What shall I sing to them? How shall I speak to them?
Whose is the speech that a groom thinks good?
Oh that a while I might gabble in Greek to them-
Gabble and gush and be understood,

Gush and glow and be understanded,
Apprehended and shaken-handed!

Yea, though a minute should seem a week to them,
I would utter such words as I might or could!

For winter's coughs and cossets are over,
And all the season of sniffs and snows,
The rheums that ravish lover from lover,
The eyes that water, the nose that blows;
And time forgotten is not remembered,
And cards are wedded and cake dismembered,
And in the Abbey, closed, under cover,

Blooms and blossoms and breaks love's rose.

A masterpiece! And there is not a touch of malignity in the lines; the poet's curious way of writing occasionally in the Hebraic style, his vagueness, his peculiar mode of procuring musical effects, are all picked out and shown with a smile. No one has quite equalled Caldecott, but this anonymous wit runs him hard."

Unfortunately the author of the article omits to state the source from whence he derived the parody he praises so highly.

HOME, SWEET HOME.

As Algernon Charles Swinburne might have wrapped it up in Variations.

('Mid pleasures and palaces—)

As sea-foam blown of the winds, as blossom of brine that is drifted

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I see black care upon thy brow,
Tell me, are I.O. U.'s now due?
And in thy pouch, I fear thy purse
Is empty, too.

"I met a lady at a bail,

Full beautiful-a fairy bright; Her hair was golden (dyed, I find!) Struck by the sight

"I gazed, and long'd to know her then :

So I entreated the M.C.

To introduce me-and he did!
Sad hour for me.

"We paced the mazy dance, and too,

We talked thro' that sweet evening long,

And to her-it came to pass,

I breathed Love's song.

"She promised me her lily hand,

She seemed particularly cool :

No warning voice then whispered low, 'Thou art a fool!'

"Next day I found I lov'd her not,

And then she wept and sigh'd full sore,
Went to her lawyer, on the spot,
And talked it o'er

"She brought an action, too, for breach
Of promise-'tis the fashion-zounds!
The jury brought in damages

Five thousand pounds!

"And this is why I sojourn here

Alone, and idly loitering,

Tho' all the season's through and tho'
No' stars •
now sing!"

The Figaro. September 15, 1875.

:0:

A SONG AFTER SUNSET.

THE breeze o'er the bridge was a-blowing,
O'er wicked and wan Waterloo,
The busses buzzed, coming and going,
As busses will do.

Amid the cold coigns of the causeway.
I secretly, silently sat,

Aloof, out of laughter's and law's way,
Hard-holding my hat.

In crowds that seemed never to cease, men
Heaved, hurtled, home-hurried and howled,
While pestilent prigs of policemen,
Persistently prowled.

From pockets that penniless sounded
Two tickets I'd drearily drawn,
They prated of pledges impounded
In pitiless pawn.

They seemed with a cynical sorrow,
To sing the same sedulous strain:
"Pay up, and redeem us to-morrow,
Your watch and your chain !

We know you of old, sworn tormentor!
You thriver on thriftless and thief!
Spout-spider!-on spoiling intent, or
Rapacious relief!

Avuncular author of anguish,

We damn you with deepest disdain !
We linger, we long, and we languish
For freedom again."

I smiled on the speakers unheeding,

I grinned at their garrulous games-
When the breeze blew them, splendidly speeding,
Right into the Thames.

They scattered, as seed that is sown, or

The fringe of the fast flowing foam,
And their hungry, hysterical owner
Went hopelessly home.

Judy. June, 16, 1380.

:0:

THE MAD, MAD MUSE.

OUT on the margin of moonshine land, Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs, Out where the whing-whang loves to stand, Writing his name with his tail on the sand, And wipes it out with his oogerish hand; Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

Is it the gibber of gungs and keeks?

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs, Or what is the sound the whing-whang seeks, Crouching low by winding creeks, And holding his breath for weeks and weeks? Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

Anoint him the wealthiest of wealthy things!
Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

'Tis a fair whing-whangess with phosphor rings,
And bridal jewels of fangs and stings,
And she sits and as sadly and softly sings;
As the mildewed whir of her own dead wings;
Tickle me, dear; tickle me here;
Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.
ROBERT J. BURDETTE.
From S. Thompson's Collection of Poems. Chicago.
1886.

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