OSCAR WILDE.
It would be useless to attempt to give any parodies on the poems of Mr. Oscar Wilde without prefacing them with some account, however brief, of his career. In a few of the skits the allusions are already out of date, and in a short time the reasons will be quite forgotten that led to the silly ridicule and misrepresentations of which Mr. Oscar Wilde, as the Apostle of Æstheticism, was formerly the object.
Mr. Oscar O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin on October 15, 1856. His father, Sir William R. Wilde, was an eminent surgeon, and a man of literary tastes and great archæological learning.
In 1851 Sir William (then Mr.) Wilde married a granddaughter of Archdeacon Elgee, of Wexford, a lady well known in literary circles in Dublin as having written many poems which were published in the Nation newspaper at the time of the political excitement in 1848. They appeared over the nom de plume “Speranza,” and were afterwards published in a collected form, entitled “Poems by Speranza.”
Mr. Oscar Wilde early developed talents such as might have been expected in the son of highly gifted parents. Having spent about a year at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, Mr. Wilde studied for a year at Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained a classical scholarship at the early age of sixteen, and in 1874, won the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek, the topic selected for that year being the Greek Comic Poets. Thence he went to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he obtained a first scholarship.
He soon began to show his taste for art and china, and before he had been at Oxford very long, his rooms were the show of the college, and of the university too. He was fortunate enough to obtain the best situated rooms in the college, on what is called the kitchen staircase, having a lovely view over the river Cherwell and the beautiful Magdalen walks, and Magdalen bridge. His rooms were three in number, and the walls were entirely panelled. The two sitting rooms were connected by an arch, where folding doors had at one time stood. His blue china was supposed by connoisseurs to be very valuable and fine, and there was plenty of it. He was hospitable, and on Sunday nights after “Common Room,” his rooms were generally the scene of conviviality, where undergraduates of all descriptions and tastes were to be met, drinking punch, or a B. and S. with their cigars. It was at one of these entertainments that he made his well-known remark, “Oh, that I could live up to my blue china!”
Besides minor scholarships, he took the Newdigate, a prize for English verse, in 1878, and a first in Literis Humanioribus, after which he took his degree.
During this period he produced a number of poems, these were published, some in The Month, others in the Catholic Monitor, and the Irish Monthly. A number of his short poems also appeared in Kottabos, a small magazine written by members of Trinity College, Dublin.
The first number of Mr. Edmund Yates’s Time, April 1879, contained a short poem by Oscar Wilde, entitled “The Conqueror of Time,” and to the July number he contributed “The New Helen.” Some of the foregoing poems, with others not previously published, appeared in a volume, entitled “Poems” by Oscar Wilde, published in 1881 by David Bogue, which speedily ran through several editions.
When referring to this volume in “The Æsthetic Movement in England” mention was made of Mr. Wilde’s exquisite little poem
REQUIESCAT.
Tread lightly, she is near,
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daises grow.
All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair,
Fallen to dust.
Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.
Coffin board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.
Peace, peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life’s buried here,
Heap earth upon it.
concerning which Mr. G. A. Sala wrote to the Editor (on August 17, 1882.) “I note your book for a proximate ‘Echo.’ I have not read Oscar Wilde’s poems, but in the very sweet stanzas (‘Requiescat’) which you quote, I mark a singular passage:—
“All her bright golden air,
Tarnished with rust.”
Golden hair (experto crede) does not tarnish in the tomb. Read the last paragraph in Zola’s Nana, which physiologically, is astoundingly accurate.”
Faithfully always,
George Augustus Sala.
The passage relating to the death of Nana runs thus:— “Et, sur ce masque horrible et grotesque du néant, les cheveux, les beaux cheveux gardant leur flambée de soleil, coulaient en un ruissellement d’or, Vénus se décomposait.”
It is also necessary to refer, here to Mr. Wilde’s career in the two other capacities he has assumed of Art Lecturer, and Dress Reformer.
The interest in the Æsthetic School had sometime since spread to the United States, and when the opera of Patience was produced it occurred to Mr. Wilde that a visit to the States to give some lectures, explanatory of real Æstheticism as it exists amongst us, might interest and possibly instruct and elevate our transatlantic cousins.
In some of his early utterances he was unguarded; he admitted, for instance, that he was not strongly impressed with the mighty ocean, and great was the flow of wit from this small cause:—
“There’s Oscar Wilde, that gifted chylde,
Fair Poesie’s anointed,
Has, like a brick, the Atlantic
Crossed, to be disappointed.
Poor Oscar Wilde, æsthetic chylde;
The Atlantic ought to know it!
A fault so grave to misbehave,
And disappoint a poet!”
He went to Omaha, where, under the auspices of the Social Art Club, he delivered a lecture on “Decorative Art,” in the course of which he described his impressions of many American houses as being “illy designed, decorated shabbily, and in bad taste, and filled with furniture that was not honestly made, and was out of character.” This statement gave rise to the following verses:—
“What a shame and what a pity,
In the streets of London City
Mr. Wilde is seen no more.
Far from Piccadilly banished,
He to Omaha has vanished,
Horrid place, which swells ignore.
On his back a coat he beareth,
Such as Sir John Bennett weareth,
Made of velvet—strange array!
Legs Apollo might have sighed for,
Or great Hercules have died for,
His knee breeches now display.
Waving sunflower and lily,
He calls all the houses “illy”
Decorated and designed.
For of taste they’ve not a tittle;
They may chew and they may whittle;
But they are all born colour blind!”
From the States he went to Canada, and thence to Nova Scotia, the Halifax Morning Herald of October 10, 1882, gave an amusing account of an interview held with him by their own “Interviewer.” “The apostle had no lily, nor yet a sunflower. He wore a velvet jacket which seemed to be a good jacket. He had an ordinary necktie and wore a linen collar about number eighteen on a neck half a dozen sizes smaller. His legs were in trousers, and his boots were apparently the product of New York art, judging by their pointed toes. His hair is the colour of straw, slightly leonine, and when not looked after, goes climbing all over his features. Mr. Wilde was communicative and genial; he said he found Canada pleasant, but in answer to a question as to whether European or American women were the more beautiful, he dexterously evaded his querist.”
The remainder of the conversation was devoted to poetry; he expressed his opinion that Poe was the greatest American poet, and that Walt Whitman, if not a poet, is a man who sounds a strong note, perhaps neither prose nor poetry, but something of his own that is grand, original and unique.
On this topic The Century, for November, 1882, contained an exquisitely humorous poem written by Helen Gray Cone, describing an imaginary interview between Oscar Wilde and the great poetical Egotist—Walt Whitman. The style and diction of both are admirably hit off. The parody of Whitman reads, indeed, like an excerpt from his works.
Unfortunately, as the poem is very long, only an extract can be given:—
Narcissus in Camden.
(“In the course of his lecture, Mr. Wilde remarked that the most impressive room he had yet entered in America was the one in Camden Town, where he met Walt Whitman. It contained plenty of fresh air and sunlight. On the table was a simple cruse of water.”)
Paumanokides. Narcissus.
Paumanokides:
Who may this be?
This young man clad unusually with loose locks, languorous, glidingly toward me advancing,
Toward the ceiling of my chamber his orbic and expressive eyeballs uprolling,
As I have seen the green-necked wild fowl, the mallard, in the thunderings of the storm,
By the weedy shore of Paumanok my fish-shaped island,
Sit down, young man!
I do not know you, but I love you with burning intensity,
I am he that loves the young men, whosoever and wheresoever they are or may be hereafter, or may have been any time in the past,
Loves the eye-glassed literat, loves also and probably more the vendor of clams, raucous-throated, monotonous chanting,
Loves the elevated Railroad employée of Manahatta,
My city;
I suppress the rest of the list of the persons I love, solely because I love you,
Sit down, élève, I receive you!
Narcissus.
O clarion, from whose brazen throat
Strange sounds across the seas are blown,
Where England, girt as with a moat,
A strong sea-lion sits alone!
A pilgrim from that white-cliffed shore,
What joy, large flower of Western land!
To seek thy democratic door,
With eager hand to clasp thy hand!
Paumanokides.
Right you are!
Take then the electric pressure of these fingers,
O my Comrade!
* * * * *
Dear son, I have learned the secret of the Universe,
I learned it from my original bonne, the white-capped ocean,
The secret of the Universe is not Beauty, dear son,
Nor is it Art, the perpetuator of Beauty,
The secret of the Universe is to admire one’s self.
Camerado, you hear me!
Narcissus.
Ah, I too loitering on an eve of June
Where one wan narciss leaned above a pool,
While overhead Queen Dian rose too soon,
And through the Tyrian clematis the cool
Night avis came wandering wearily, I too,
Beholding that pale flower, beheld Life’s key at last, and knew
That love of one’s fair self were but indeed
Just worship of pure Beauty; and I gave
One sweet sad sigh, then bade my fond eyes feed
Upon the mirrored treasure of the wave,
Like that lithe beauteous boy in Tempe’s vale,
Whom hapless Echo loved—thou knowest the Heliconian tale!
And while heaven’s harmony in lake and gold
Changed to a faint nocturne in silvern gray,
Like rising sea-mists from my spirit rolled
The grievous vapors of this Age of Clay,
Beholding Beauty’s re-arisen Shrine,
And the white glory of this precious loveliness of mine!
* * * * *
Haply in the far, the orient future,
In the dawn we herald like the birds,
Men shall read the legend of our meeting,
Linger o’er the music of our words;
Haply coming poets shall compare me
Then to Milton in his lovely youth,
Sitting in the cell of Galileo,
Learning at his elder’s lips the truth.
Haply they shall liken these dear moments,
Safely held in History’s amber clear,
Unto Dante’s converse bland with Virgil,
On the margin of that gloomy mere!
Paumanokides.
Do not be deceived, dear son;
Amid the chorusses of the morn of progress, roaring, hilarious, those names will be heard no longer.
Galileo was admirable once, Milton was admirable,
Dante the I-talian was a cute man in his way,
But he was not the maker of poems, the answerer!
I, Paumanokides, am the maker of poems, the answerer,
And I calculate to chant as long as the earth revolves,
To an interminable audience of haughty, effusive, copious, gritty, and chipper Americanos!
Narcissus.
What more is left to say or do?
Our minds have met; our hands must part.
I go to plant in pastures new
The love of Beauty and of Art,
I’ll shortly start.
One town is rather small for two
Like me and you!
Paumanokides.
So long!
Punch also had a very funny burlesque description of
“OSCAR INTERVIEWED.
“New York, Jan., 1882.
“Determined to anticipate the rabble of penny-a-liners ready to pounce upon any distinguished foreigner who approaches our shores, and eager to assist a sensitive Poet in avoiding the impertinent curiosity and ill-bred insolence of the Professional Reporter, I took the fastest pilot-boat on the station, and boarded the splendid Cunard steamer, The Boshnia, in the shucking of a pea-nut.
“His Æsthetic Appearance.
“He stood, with his large hand passed through his long hair, against a high chimney-piece—which had been painted pea-green, with panels of peacock blue pottery let in at uneven intervals—one elbow on the high ledge, the other hand on his hip. He was dressed in a long, snuff-coloured, single-breasted coat, which reached to his heels, and was relieved with a seal-skin collar and cuffs rather the worse for wear. Frayed linen, and an orange silk handkerchief gave a note to the generally artistic colouring of the ensemble, while one small daisy drooped despondently in his button-hole.
“His Glorious Past.
“Precisely—I took the Newdigate. Oh! no doubt, every year some man gets the Newdigate; but not every year does Newdigate get an Oscar. Since then—barely three years, but centuries to such as I am—I have stood upon the steps of London Palaces—in South Kensington—and preached Æsthetic art. I have taught the wan beauty to wear nameless robes, have guided her limp limbs into sightless knots and curving festoons, while we sang of the sweet sad sin of Swinburne, or the lone delight of soft communion with Burne-Jones. Swinburne had made a name, and Burne-Jones had copied illuminations e’er the first silky down had fringed my upper lip, but the Trinity of Inner Brotherhood was not complete till I came forward, like the Asphodel from the wilds of Arcady, to join in sweet antiphonal counterchanges with the Elder Seers. We are a Beautiful Family—we are, we are, we are!”
“Yes; I expect my Lecture will be a success. So does Dollar Carte—I mean D’Oyly Carte. Too-Toothless Senility may jeer, and poor positive Propriety may shake her rusty curls; but I am here, to pipe of Passion’s venturous Poesy, and reap the scorching harvest of Self-Love! I am not quite sure what I mean. The true Poet never is. In fact, true Poetry is nothing if it is intelligible.
“His Kosmic Soul.
“Oh, yes! I speak most languages; in the sweet honey-tinted brogue my own land lends me. La bella Donna della mia Mente exists, but she is not the Jersey Lily, though I have grovelled at her feet; she is not the Juno Countess, though I have twisted my limbs all over her sofas; she is not the Polish Actress, though I have sighed and wept over all the boxes of the Court Theatre; she is not the diaphanous Sarah, though I have crawled after her footsteps through the heavy fields of scentless Asphodel; she is not the golden haired Ellen, more fair than any woman Veronesé looked upon, though I have left my Impressions on many and many a seat in the Lyceum Temple, where she is High Priestess; nor is she one of the little Nameless Naiads I have met in Lotus-haunts, who, with longing eyes, watch the sweet bubble of the frenzied grape. No, Sir, my real Love is my own Kosmic Soul, enthroned in its flawless essence; and when America can grasp the supreme whole I sing in too-too utterance for vulgar lips, then soul and body will blend in mystic symphonies; then, crowned with bellamours and wanton flower-de-luce, I shall be hailed Lord of a new Empery, and as I stain my lips in the bleeding wounds of the Pomegranate, and wreathe my o’ergrown limbs with the burnished disk of the Sunflower, Apollo will turn pale and lashing the restive horses of the Sun, the tamer chariot of a forgotten god will make way for the glorious zenith of the one Oscar Wilde.”
Since his return from America Mr. Oscar Wilde has settled in London, and is known in society as a genial and witty gentleman, and a particularly graceful after-dinner speaker. He is the Editor of The Woman’s World, a very high class magazine, published by Cassell and Co., in which he has ample opportunities of advocating his favourite cult, the worship of the beautiful in Nature and in Art.
Sainte Margérie.
An Imitation.
Slim feet than lilies tenderer,—
Margérie!
That scarce upbore the body of her,
Naked upon the stones they were;—
C’est ça Sainte Margérie!
White as a shroud the silken gown,—
Margérie!
That flowed from shoulder to ankle down,
With clear blue shadows along it thrown;
C’est ça Sainte Margérie!
On back and bosom withouten braid,—
Margérie!
In crisped glory of darkling red,
Round creamy temples her hair was shed;—
C’est ça Sainte Margérie!
Eyes like a dim sea, viewed from far,—
Margérie!
Lips that no earthly love shall mar,
More sweet than lips of mortals are;—
C’est ça Sainte Margérie!
The chamber walls are cracked and bare;—
Margérie!
Without the gossips stood astare
At men her bed away that bare;—
C’est ça Sainte Margérie!
Five pennies lay her hand within,—
Margérie!
So she her fair soul’s weal might win,
Little she recked of dule or teen;—
C’est ça Sainte Margérie!
Dank straw from dunghill gathered,
Margérie!
Where fragrant swine have made their bed,
Thereon her body shall be laid;—
C’est ça Sainte Margérie!
Three pennies to the poor in dole,—
Margérie!
One to the clerk her knell shall toll,
And one to masses for her soul;—
C’est ça Sainte Margérie!
From Poems and Parodies. By Two Undergrads. Oxford. B. H. Blackwell, 1880.
(This little paper-covered pamphlet was originally published at the price of one shilling; it was withdrawn from circulation, and is consequently very scarce.)
Sitting up all Night with a Lily.
Oh, fulsome the joy of the fading light!
Oh, fainting of lilies with broken stem!
When you feel too utterly almost quite,
The sunflowers love, yet love not them!
Oh, weird is the feeling of thoughtsome doubt
When candles, and lamps, and gas are out,
And burglarious Philistines prowl about,
Chill is the air at four a.m.!
Oh, mystic the eyelids all drowsy grown!
Oh, fainting of lilies with broken stem!
Oh, twitching of limbs that are scarce your own,
The sunflowers love, yet love not them!
Oh, baleful blessing, the wistful wist
Of matters that have not, nor can exist!
Oh, say, have you noticed the gladsome list?
Chill is the air at four a.m.!
You think of your bed with remorseful tears,
Oh, fainting of lilies with broken stem!
While sounds of the silence attack your ears,
The sunflowers love, yet love not them!
Oh, mythic deeds by the sightless seen!
Oh, lovely past of the has not been!
Oh, what in the world do I chance to mean?
Chill is the air at four a.m.!
Fun’s Academy Skits. 1882.
An Utter Passion uttered Utterly.
Meseem’d that Love, with swifter feet than fire,
Brought me my Lady crown’d with amorous burs,
And drapen in tear-collar’d minivers,
Sloped saltire wise in token of desire;
My heart she soak’d in tears, and on a pyre
Laid, for Love’s sake, in folds of fragrant perse,
The while her face, more fair than sunflowers,
She gave mine eyes for pasture most entire.
Sicklike she seem’d, as with wan-carven smiles
Some deal she moved anear, and thereunto
Thrice paler wox, and weaker than blown sand
Upon the passioning ocean’s beached miles;
And as her motion’s music nearer drew
My starved lips play’d the vampyre with her hand.
John Todhunter.
Kottabos. Dublin, William McGee. 1882.
An Æsthete’s Rhapsody.
Consummate Dish! full many an ancient crack
Is seamed across thy venerable back;
And even through to thine æsthetic face
Cracks run to lend a more enchanting grace!
What matter though the epicure now loses
The juice which through thy gaping fissures oozes?
Thrice happy Table-cloth, thou knowest not
The too-too beauty of yon greasy spot,
To think that with a little vulgar butter,
This High Art Dish can make thee look so utter.
Harper’s Bazaar.
In 1881 and 1882 Punch teemed with parodies on Oscar Wilde, one of the best appeared May 28, 1881:—
More Impressions.
(By Oscuro Wildegoose.)
La Fuite des Oies.
To outer senses they are geese,
Dull drowsing by a weedy pool;
But try the impression trick, Cool! Cool!
Snow-slumbering sentinels of Peace!
Deep silence on the shadowy flood
Save rare sharp stridence (that means “quack”).
Low amber light in Ariel track
Athwart the dun (that means the mud).
And suddenly subsides the sun,
Bulks mystic, ghostly, thrid the gloom
(That means the white geese waddling home),
And darkness reigns! (See how it’s done?)
The titles of some others are;—
| April 9, 1881. | A Maudle-in Ballad to his Lily. |
| June 23, 1881. | Maunderings at Marlow. |
| October 1, 1881. | The Æsthete to the Rose. |
| November 26, 1881. | The Downfall of the Dado. |
| January 14, 1882. | Murder made Easy. |
| March 31, 1883. | Sage Green, by a Fading-out Æsthete. |
this latter contained the following verses:—
My love is as fair as a lily flower.
(The Peacock Hue has a sacred sheen!)
Oh, bright are the blooms in her maiden bower.
(Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!)
Her face is as wan as the water white.
(The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!)
Her eyes are as stars on a moonlit night.
(Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!)
The China plate it is pure on the wall.
(The Peacock blue has a sacred sheen!)
Alack! she heedeth it never at all.
(Sing Hey! Sing Ho! for the sweet Sage Green!)
* * * * *
The Public House.
(With apologies to
Oscar Wilde’s “The Harlot’s House.”)
We wandered home with weary feet,
We lumbered down the lamp-lit street,
And stopped beneath a public-house.
Outside, in just the usual way,
We heard the grand old cornet play
A carol to the wild carouse.
Like smell of spirits came the blast
Of heated air that streetward passed,
As “Out yer go” were shoved “the blind.”
We watched the reeling roysterers spin
From scene of revelry within,
Like those who’d left their legs behind.
Like idiots they, of foolish face,
With grinning, ghastly-pale grimace,
They looked so very, very ill!
They took each other by the arm,
As if in that there were a charm,
In short they had had quite their fill.
Sometimes a man who out was set
Went through the swearing alphabet.
Or p’r’aps he’d homeward start and sing.
Then turning round to go, I said,
“It’s after hours, I’ll home to bed,
I will not wait the outward rush!”
Just then the Bobby heard the din,
And after knocking, entered in,
Law passed into the House of Sin.
Then suddenly the cornet stopped,
The thrumming harp’s drear music dropped,
The house it seemed its sails to furl.
And down the long and noisy street
The staggering legs of “whisky neat”
Crawled headlong in a whirl.
Tramway Tame.
The Sporting Times. June 13, 1885.
A “Rose” Ball.
A Rose, or Maidens’ Ball took place, in July 1885, at Hyde Park House, which was lent for the occasion by Mrs. Naylor-Leyland. It was a complete success, in spite of the absence of Royalty. As a social gathering, it was the smartest dance of the season, while, from a girl’s point of view, there has been no ball in London to equal it for many a day. Each fair donor paid five pounds, for which she was allowed to ask five men, and in almost every case the favoured five put in an appearance; so instead of the dancing-rooms being filled with girls anxiously looking for partners, the tables were turned, and the black coats had to take their turn at playing wallflowers—an amusement, to judge from some of their remarks, that they did not all appreciate. Each maiden carried a bouquet of roses, and almost all the floral decorations were confined to various varieties of the same flower.
Five-and-seventy maidens, free,
Bent on dancing, one and all,
Did some weeks ago decree
They, themselves, would give a ball.
Each, they said, would ask five men
Who at waltzing were au fait.
Settled was their project then,
They had even fixed the day!
Ah, miserie!
For these dancing maidens found
That a certain potent Prince,
When he heard their details, frowned,
His displeasure to evince.
“This,” said he, “must not be so!”
“That,” he quoth, “should not be thus!”
Till the maidens’ tears did flow,
As they murmured “Woe to us!
Ah, miserie!”
These same maidens, though, were wise,
And soon ceased to weep or wince;
Nor would they their plans revise,
E’en to please a potent Prince,
But resolved to merry be,
Even though he would not come,
Much enjoyed their dance, whilst he
Had to moan in accents glum—
“Ah, miserie!”
Truth. July 16, 1885.
An Un-Æsthetic Love Song.
A barrel of beer and a glass of gin hot
Are goodly gifts for me;
For my own true love a half-gallon pot
Filled to the brim with tea.
For thee a bloater from Yarmouth town
(Fresh, O fresh, is a fish of the sea!);
For me some beef, and, to wash it down,
A pint of porter (ah me! ah me!).
Sherbet and zoedone for thee
(Teetotal drinks have taking names!);
A cup of claret and pink for me
(O! men are stronger than dames!)
From Ballades of a Country Bookworm, by Thomas Hutchinson. London, Stanesby & Co. 1888.
Quite the Cheese.
By a Wilde Æsthete.
There once was a maiden who loved a cheese
Sing, hey! potatoes and paint!
She could eat a pound and a half with ease!
O the odorous air was faint!
What was the cheese that she loved the best?
Sing, hey! red pepper and rags!
You will find it out if you read the rest;
Oh, the horror of frowning crags!
Came lovers to woo her from ev’ry land—
Sing, hey! fried bacon and files!
They asked for her heart, but they meant her hand,
O the joy of the Happy Isles.
A haughty old Don from Oporto came;
Sing, hey! new carrots and nails!
The Duke Gorgonzola his famous name
O the lusciously-scented gales!
Lord Stilton belonged to a mighty line!
Sing, hey! salt herrings and stones!
He was “Blue” as china—his taste divine!
O the sweetness of dulcet tones.
Came stout Double Glo’ster—a man and wife
Sing, hey! post pillars and pies!
And the son was SINGLE, and fair as fate;
O the purple of sunset skies!
De Camembert came from his sunny France
Sing, hey! pork cutlets and pearls!
He would talk sweet nothings, and sing and dance
O the sighs of the soft sweet girls.
Came Gruyere so pale! a most hole-y-man!
Sing, hey! red sandstone and rice!
But the world saw through him as worldlings can
O the breezes from Isles of Spice.
But the maiden fair loved no cheese but one
Sing, hey! acrostics and ale!
Save for single Glo’ster she love had none!
O the roses on fair cheeks pale!
He was fair and single—and so was she!
Sing hey! tomatoes and tar!
And so now you know which it is to be!
O the aid of a lucky star!
They toasted the couple the livelong night
Sing hey! cast-iron and carp!
And engaged a poet this song to write.
O the breathing Æolian harp!
So he wrote this ballad at vast expense!
Sing, hey! pump-handles and peas!
And, though you may think it devoid of sense,
O he fancies it Quite the Cheese!
H. C. Waring.
