PIAMATER.
By Alfred Longcove.
Should you ask of what I'm writing,
With the scented smoke of segars
Curling around my weary head,
With the odours of the class-rooms,
And its wild reverberations
Of the many interruptions
Of its bands of many students,
Rankling in my ears and nostrils?
Why my head I scratch so often?
Why I ask my muse to aid me
With her bright poetic fire?
Why I burn the gas at midnight?
Why I have so many books—
Poetry books on prosy subjects,
Books of songs by Burns and Moore,
Ponderous books for words referring,
Webster's Unabridged and Walker's
Poet's Rhyming Dictionary—
Strewed around me on the table?
I should answer, I should tell you,
"'Tis because I am composing
A natal song to Alma Mater."
'Tis thy year, O Alma Mater,
Of thy great Tercentenary.
Time, thy years three hundred measures
With his glass; the mighty Hour-glass
Marks thy seconds, passing quickly,
With grains of sand for e'er falling
Through its glassy neck so slender,
Let us sing to her, O students,
A pæan song of natal greetings,
Let us spread our banquet-tables
In the halls of Edina's town.
Let us drain to her good welfare
Many bottles filled with good wine
From the vineyard of the Loire,
From the Spanish town of Xeres,
From the town of great Oporto,
From the country of the Deutchers,
From the flow'ry land of Champagne;
Let us drain the pewter tankards,
Filled with Bass's bittery beer
And with Dublin's triple X stout;
Let us drain our glassy goblets,
Filled with the wine of Gooseberry,
Filled with clarets made in London,
And with other imitations;
Let us brew the Festive Toddy
From the whisky, great Tanglefeet,
On that morn—her natal morning!
Sons and daughters of old Scotland,
Land of Oatcakes and of Whisky,
Don your costumes made for Sunday;
O ye students of Edina,
Put your "go-to-meetings" on you;
O ye Dons, that festal morning,
Don ye your gowns and mortar boards;
Let the Billirubin warble
One of his impromptu ditties,
Physiologic songs of praise—
Sing the praise of Alma Mater;
Let the great, her mighty surgeon,
Throw his dazzling, lustrous sheen
Of his intellect most massive,
In a speech of his own making,
Stock full of jokes and anecdotes—
Speak the praise of Alma Mater;
Let them all, her swell Professors,
Puff her up above the skies.
From the Gardens to the Meadows,
From the Loch—great Duddingston—
To the station of Haymarket,
From the Place of the Lunatics
To the town of Portobello—
Where the many donkey-riders
Ride along its dirty sands;
Where the fellows go on Sunday
For a walk, and drink the Ozone
Wafted round promiscuously;
Where they go to meet their damsels,
And walk with them along the strand—
From Merchiston to Warriston,
Let merry songs of praises ring
On that day, her happy birthday.
Now join with me, ye students all,
Wish her now, your Alma Mater,
Greatest wealth and prosperity.
Hail to thee, O Alma Mater,
School above schools upon this earth!
Hail to thee, thou great Alchemist!
Hail to thee, O Verdant Pasture!
Hail to thee, O Parenchyma!
Hail to thee, thou Grecian Pet!
Hail to thee, the great Kail Runter!
Hail to thee, O Billirubin!
Hail to thee, O Wells of Water!
Hail to thee, the Kitchen Surgeon!
Hail to thee, thou Man of Physic!
Hail to thee, thou Just Lawgiver!
Hail to thee, the great Drug Speaker!
Hail to thee, her Story-teller!
Hail to thee, the great Dissector!
Hail to thee, O Damsonjamer!
Hail to thee, her Organ Grinder!
Hail to thee, thou Fossilfeller!
Hail to thee, O Afterglower!
Hail to thee, the Celtic Chairer!
Hail to thee, O Wandering Jew!
Hail to thee, the Magna Charta!
Hail to thee, O great Kirkpaddy!
Hail to thee, Cephalic Mewer!
Hail to thee, no Small Pertater!
Hail to thee, the great Schoolboarder!
Hail to thee, her Comet-gazer!
Hail to thee, the Soda-fountain!
Hail to thee, thou Cubic Crystal!
Hail to thee, O Science Gossip!
Hail to thee, the Engine-Driver!
Hail to thee, thou great Darwiner!
Hail to thee, the Eye-restorer!
Hail to thee, O great Lunatic!
Hail to thee, her long Gatekeeper!
Hail to ye, her famous Children!
Hail to ye, O Students' Council!
Hail to ye, her many Students!
Hail to me, her Song Composer!
Hail to ye, all her Children, Friends,
And Near Relations, on that day!
All hail to our Alma Mater
On her natal morn be given!!![5]
The author of The Dagonet Ballads has produced so many pathetic poems, descriptive of the terrible miseries of our London poor, that one is rather apt to overlook the humorous poetry proceeding from the same pen. But, like all true masters of pathos, this poet of the people has the power to summon up smiles through our tears. It was well said of Tom Hood "that the blending of the grave with the gay which pervaded his writings, makes it no easy task to class his poems under the heads of 'serious' and 'comic.'" This remark applies with equal force to the poems of George R. Sims, and were it possible to anticipate the verdict of posterity we might expect to find the names of Hood and Sims classed together; indeed, so far as practical results are concerned, the philanthropical efforts of the younger poet are likely far to exceed anything that was achieved by the author of The Bridge of Sighs and The Song of the Shirt.
But this is not the place to consider Mr. Sims' position as a serious writer, although, indeed, even the following poem has a moral:—