LAUGHING VERSES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2905, 17 November 1909, Page 84

LAUGHING VERSES.

i By Jessie Mackat. • i (Concluded.)' ! The «arly ninei-eentb , century found English poets hammering hard at jocularity, for the most part with the classic airiness of a stonebreaker. ' Such were tha. ponderous" measures of Southey' adcir€feed to Allan Cunningbam, and beajring on the buss of certain portrait -painters of the time who antedat-sd and adapted the present e-ins of the American pressman who constructs a whole interview out of a ■ banama-skin droppad by some distinguished victim in flight. .The offend-ed Laureate thundered : Stand thoii forth for trial, Now. William Dartoii, of the Society Of Friends, called Quakers. "What had I den« to tnee, thou William Darton, That thou shouldst for the lucre of base gain, Yea,, for the sake of filthy fourpences, Palm op. my countrymen that face JE or mine ? O! William Darton, let the yearly meeting Deal frith thee for that falseness! . . . I£ I guess rightly at the pedigree toy bad groatsworfck, thou didst get a barber To personate my injured Laureateship. To be sure, Southey's comic ballads had something of a , less leaden turn, but they do not catch the modern ear. "The Rejected Addresses" of James and Horace Smith appeals more to us, since they are apt, if voluminous, parodies of writers still well known. The genial .brothels proceed without malice to take off the great ones of their time. Perhaps Wordsworth is hit hardest in "Ths Baby's Debut," where the artless im-aerstiidy of Alice Fell aod Luc> Gray relates her nursery adventures : My brother Jack was nine in May. And I was eight on N-ew dear's i3ay; So in. Kate Wilson's shop Papa ray papa and Jack's) Bought me, last T*eek, a doll of wax, And brother Jack a top. Jack's in the pouts, and this it is: Se thinks mia? came to more than his; So to my drawer he goes; ] Takes our the doll, and ob. my stars! He pokes her head between' the barsT* And melts off half her nose! Scott's galloping heroic style i 6 captured to a turn in tne " Tale of Drury Lane " : As chaos, which by heavenly doom Had slept in everlasting gloom, ,' Started 'with terror and surprise . When light first flashed upon her eye's; So London's sons in nightca-i woke, In bed-gown woke her dames, For shouts weie heard 'mid fire and smoke, And twice ten hundred voices spoke, " The playhouse is in flames !" • • • • « The summoned firemen woke .at call, And hied them to their stations all. And one, the leader of tbe band, From Charing Cross along ' the Strand, . Like stag hy baagles hunted hard, j Ran till he stopped at Vin'gar Yard; The burning badge his shoulder bore, The belt and oilskin hat he -wore, The cane he had his men to bang, Showed foreman of the British gang; His name wrb Higginbottom. t Now 'Tis meet that I should tell you how The others came in view. . . With these come Ewnjfoxd, MumfosiJ, C?Je, Robins from -Hockier in th« Hole. Law-son and Daweon* cheek by jowl, Crump from S4. Giles's Pcund; , Huggins and Muggins from Chick Lane, And ClutterbUck. who got » sprain Before the plug was found; Hobs on and Jobson did not sleep, But, ah! no trophy could they reap, For both were in the donjon .keep Of Bridewell's gloomy mound. Hood was the comic Laureate of this psriod, but modern readens would require a page of commenitary to every verse, so topical was his work. It is the fate (and sure, no ill fate,) of this prince of old wordd jesters to live as the author of two of the saddest and noblest poein-s in the languagie, "The Bridge of Sighs" and " The Song of the Shirt." Save for his punning rhymes we know him little as a jester now. But still we can follow the clouded love-story of Ben Battle : Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war's alarms; But a cannon-ball took off hi- legs, ' And he laid down his arms. Now, Ben he loved a pretty lass; Her name was Nellie Gray; He went to pay her his devours When he devoured nis pay. t But the faith of the maid was not proof against such an aggravated disaster : For she could never love a man With both feet in the grave. And poor Ben was left expostulating: O Nellie Gray, O Nellie Gray! Is this your love so warm? The love that loves a scarlet coat Should be mere uniform. The age of Moore and Byron was rich "tl retire. Li the Irish poet's caee it rippled with mischief that hardened into malice only when bent against the Prince Regent. Seldom has any ruler been so hat«d by poets as George IV. Moore, describing a supposed recontre when tJie Prince desired to travel incognito", makes his discomfited hero remark : When next by the old yellow chariot I ride, I'll remember there is nothing princely inside. In Byron all -wit turned to gall, ancl one oan v imagine his delight in the savage quip fha-t rose when he beheld the Prince Branding between the monuments of Henry VIII and Charles I. Posterity is heartily with Byron n declaring the Prince Charles to his people, Henry to his wife; and; ' stretches no poin x in seeing th« tomb Disgorge The blood and dust of both to mould a George. But comic verse hae largely dropped out of English literature in our own day. Kudyard Kipling writes no more of

- Gunga 3>in and ths, nunjours.of the barrack room. Austin Dobspn's verse de ■ eociete are as light as gossamer, and caui not rank above "the gentle art of carving } cherrystones. Probably, Qwen Searoau. ! the -genial of Punch, is the undisputed comic laureate of.^the Edwardiar period. , . i . V1 : It Is tht Americans whi> v have suppled tha bulk of the comic, vey^a written in .English -during the ninet^BJith century. The. middle of that century t gaw the rise of the great - humorous; -, rhymers of the West — Lowell and' Bret.Haxte. Lowell it is who stands out head and shoulders above his compeers in this, connection. He grasped • life fairly vit^i both hands, so to speak, being poet>j critic, scholar, and man of affairs. Bret Haxte lacked th« . purpose, the pitb, { .which, curiously •enough, - has got to -„ underlie lasting humour. It was England an>d the Eastern States which went mad ov^r Bret Haxte — not so much the Pacific which did not .always recognise fteelf-vin the mirror held up "by the creator .of Colonel Star bottle. But the "Heathen dChinee" and the tale of Truthful Jam«Si .are Yankee v classics of a sort, acd ne«d no quotation to recall them to th« » papular initwi. Lowell was sttfong where" Bret HaTte was weakest, and the good- redi blocd of Puritan New Enigland runs wtwm through "The Biglow Papers," which have no equal in America as comic fioetvy pure and simple. These artless m-easwes have the broad primitive setting, -the spontaneity, and the humanity that will; endure after the pr-sck>B events of the Mexican- war have grown dim in the minds of succeeding generations. "The Pious Editor's Creed." for example, is as- pat for any jobbery or jingoism as it' .vas the day it was written two generations ago: — Pdu believe thet I should give "Wut's his'n unto Cte*ar, ' - For it's by hin? I move tan' live. " From him my bread aft? cheeseair; I dv believe that all o\ me Doth bear his superscription, — ( "Will, conscience, honourj 'ficnesty, An' things o' that description. . . .' ' ' % • In shoTt, I firmly dv believe 2a Humbug generally, . • For it's a thing tha* I petfbeive * To her a solid vally; ' This heth my faithiul, shepherd been, In pastures sweat heth.. led me, 1 An' -fhis'll keep the people "gree To feed ez they hey fed' me. And the reflections of ! Bird-o'-freedum ' Sawin have a homely ring, of truth that is also cosmopolitan : Afore -I came away from hum I hed a strong ■persuasion - - Thet Mexicans worn't hunuan beans, — an ourang-outang nation, ( A sort o' folks a chap cculS kill and never ■dream on't arter, '' >L No more'n a leller'd dream: o' pigs 4het he hed led ta slarter. ,■ :" I'd an ides that thfey were, built arter. th 3 durkie fashion all, t , v An' Irickie coloured folks about, you know's, a kind o' nation*!; ■But wen I jined I worn't 'so wise ez thet air 'queen o' Shen"by, ■ * Fer, come to Took at 'em -they aint't much v diff'rent from wut we jbe. The modern humour of > has no finer exponent than Mps Charlotte Perkins Gilman, wboss animal 'pafrables are of abiding charm and pnna6fli;y. The Tory butterfly is a case in point, Evidently being written with a prophetic 1 foreknowledge of the Anti-Suffrage League.. The butterfly refuses to thank heaven' for bis on* desired wings : — - ' " I do not , want to fly," he said ; "I oniy w-ant to squirm." But whatever be the point or paradox achieved by comic verse, one cannot but hold it the most doubtful and strained! form to which poetry, jean be turned. The Muse of Laughter j^ like the rainbow in this, that her . sheen .Is only a thing of rare chance and.' rapid dispersion,