THE PLAY KING.
(Not included in Mr. Tennyson's New Volume).
You may take and bill me early, bill me early, HENRY dear;
I'm going to make the biggest hit of all the coming year;
Of all the coming year, HENRY, the safest spec to pay;
For I'm going to write you a play, HENRY, I'm going to write you a play.
There's lots of blank, blank verse, you know, but none so neat as mine;
There's GILBERT, and there's WILLS, and—well, some others in their line;
But none of them are Laureates, though clever in their way;
So I'm going to write you a play, HENRY, I'm going to write you a play.
'Twill be all right at night, HENRY, on that my name I'll stake:
I've got a good Egyptian plot, that's safe, I'm told, to take.
You're poisoned in a temple, Miss TERRY dies at bay—
I am writing you such a play, HENRY, I am writing you such a play.
As I came towards the theatre, whom think ye I should see,
But Messrs. HARE and KENDAL, looking sorrowful at me?
They were thinking of The Falcon I wrote but yesterday,
And they didn't ask me for a play, HENRY, they didn't ask me for a play.
I know your ghost draws well, HENRY, but don't be in a fright,
My forte isn't stage-effect: when I write plays, I write.
You'll have five pages at a time,—as much as you can say;
But a Poet is writing your play, HENRY, a Poet is writing your play.
Some critics tell me that my place is not behind the scenes;
That if I must descend I might stop short at magazines.
But as Queen Mary from the doors the money turned away,
You must long for another big play, HENRY, you must long for another big play.
For fads and fancies grow, HENRY, to wither like the grass,—
The latest, culture;—and for that, my name doth current pass.
So that's why, though I can't construct, and you feel all astray,
You've asked me to write you a play, HENRY, you've asked me to write you a play.
So take and bill me early, bill me early HENRY, dear;
I'm going to make the biggest hit of all the coming year;
Of all the coming year, HENRY:—and if it shouldn't pay:—
Still I shall have written your play, HENRY, I shall have written your play!
From Punch, December 4th, 1880.
These verses had reference to the announcement that the Poet Laureate was writing a tragedy to be produced at the Lyceum Theatre.—The Cup was indeed a greater success than most of Mr. Tennyson's previous dramatic productions, but it owed its popularity to splendid acting, and the magnificent mise-en-scene, far more than to its merits as a play, beautiful as it was as a poem.—It was produced on the 19th February, 1881.
In The Referee for December 2, 1882, the following parodies were published. It will be noticed that the first part imitates Cowper's John Gilpin, the second part Tennyson's May Queen, and the third part Campbell's Hohenlinden.
"I beg very humbly to submit a poem to the
Royal Family, the Bench, the Bar, and the
British public on the opening of the new Law
Courts."