THE MONTHLY PARODIES.
AN APOLOGY.
After William Morris's "Earthly Paradise."
(Written expressly for this collection.)
Of Love or War this is no hour to sing,
But I may ease the burden of your fears
(Lest you think death to mirth is happening),
And quote from wit of past and present years,
Till o'er these pages you forget your tears,
And smile again, as presently you say
Some idle jingle—or forgotten lay.
But when a-weary of the hunt for mirth
Thro' comic journals with a doleful sigh
You feel unkindly unto all the earth,
And grudge the pennies that they cost to buy
These "weakly comics," lingering like to die,
Remember, then, a little while, I pray,
The clever singers of a former day.
The pomp and power and grand majestic air
That marches thro' their poems' stately tread,
These idle verses may catch unaware,
And by burlesque call back remembered
Some rhymes "that living not can ne'er be dead,"
Though what is meant by that I cannot say—
But Mr. Morris wrote it one fine day.
Here grouped are strains of parody in rhyme,
Now classified and placed in order straight,
Let it suffice it for the present time
That some be old, while some are born but late,
A careful choice, from all the crowd that wait,
Of those that in forgotten serials stay,
Or are, in passing journals, tossed away.
Folks say a wizard to a common King,
One April-tide such wondrous jest did show
That in a mirror men beheld each thing,
Like, yet unlike, and saw the pale nose glow,
While rosy face looked white as fallen snow,
Each visage altered in such comic way
That those who came to court, remain'd to play.
So with these many Parodies it is,
If you will read aright and carefully,
Not scathing satire, nor malicious hiss
For lack of beauty in the themes to see,
Nor jeerings coarse, at what men prize, as we
But jest to make some little changeling play
Its pranks in classic robes, all crowned with bay.
J. W. GLEESON WHITE,
CHRISTCHURCH.
March, 1884.
On the 1st March, 1884, a bust of Longfellow (by Mr. T. Brock, A.R.A.) was unveiled in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey. It is placed between the graves of Dryden and Cowley, and bears this inscription:—