THE ART OF POETRY.
II.
In this lecture I propose to explain how comic poetry is written.
Comic poetry, as I think I pointed out in my last lecture, is much more difficult than serious poetry, because there are all sorts of rules. In serious poetry there are practically no rules, and what rules there are may be shattered with impunity as soon as they become at all inconvenient. Rhyme, for instance. A well-known Irish poet once wrote a poem which ran like this:
"Hands, do as you're bid,
Draw the balloon of the mind
That bellies and sags in the wind
Into its narrow shed."
This was printed in a serious paper; but if the poet had sent it up to a humorous paper (as he might well have done) the Editor would have said, "Do you pronounce it shid?", and the poet would have had no answer. You see, he started out, as serious poets do, with every intention of organising a good rhyme for bid—or perhaps for shed—but he found this was more difficult than he expected. And then, no doubt, somebody drove all his cattle on to his croquet-lawn, or somebody else's croquet-lawn, and he abandoned the struggle. I shouldn't complain of that; what I do complain of is the deceitfulness of the whole thing. If a man can't find a better rhyme than shed for a simple word like bid, let him give up the idea of having a rhyme at all; let him write—
Hands, do as you're TOLD,
or
Into its narrow HUT (or even HANGAR).
That at least would be an honest confession of failure. But to write bid and shed is simply a sinister attempt to gain credit for writing a rhymed poem without doing it at all.
Well, that kind of thing is not allowed in comic poetry. When I opened my well-known military epic, "Riddles of the King," with the couplet,
Full dress (with decorations) will be worn
When General Officers are shot at dawn,
the Editor wrote cuttingly in the margin, "Do you say dorn?"
The correct answer would have been, of course, "Well, as a matter of fact I do;" but you cannot make answers of that kind to Editors; they don't understand it. And that brings you to the real drawback of comic poetry; it means constant truck with Editors. But I must not be drawn into a discussion about them. In a special lecture—two special lectures—— Quite.
The lowest form of comic poetry is, of course, the Limerick; but it is a mistake to suppose that it is the easiest. It is more difficult to finish a Limerick than to finish anything in the world. You see, in a Limerick you cannot begin:—
There was an old man of West Ham
and go on
Who formed an original plan,
finishing the last line with limb or hen or bun. A serious writer could do that with impunity, and indeed with praise, but the more exacting traditions of Limerical composition insist that, having fixed on Ham as the end of the first line, you must find two other rhymes to Ham, and good rhymes too. This is why there is so large a body of uncompleted Limericks. For many years I have been trying to finish the following unfinished masterpiece:—
There was a young man who said "Hell!
I don't think I feel very well——"
That was composed on the Gallipoli Peninsula; in fact it was composed under fire; indeed I remember now that we were going over the top at the time. But in the quiet days of Peace I can get no further with it. It only shows how much easier it is to begin a Limerick than to end it.
Apart from the subtle phrasing of the second line this poem is noteworthy because it is cast in the classic form. All the best Limericks are about a young man, or else an old one, who said some short sharp monosyllable in the first line. For example:—
There was a young man who said "If——
Now what are the rhymes to if? Looking up my Rhyming Dictionary I see they are:—
cliff
hieroglyph
hippogriff
skiff
sniff
stiff
tiff
whiff
Of these one may reject hippogriff at once, as it is in the wrong metre. Hieroglyph is attractive, and we might do worse than:—
There was a young man who said "If
One murdered a hieroglyph——"
Having, however, no very clear idea of the nature of a hieroglyph I am afraid that this will also join the long list of unfinished masterpieces. Personally I should incline to something of this kind:—
There was a young man who said "If
I threw myself over a cliff
I do not believe
One person would grieve——"
Now the last line is going to be very difficult. The tragic loneliness, the utter disillusion of this young man is so vividly outlined in the first part of the poem that to avoid an anticlimax a really powerful last line is required. But there are no powerful rhymes. A serious poet, of course, could finish up with death or faith, or some powerful word like that. But we are limited to skiff, sniff, tiff and whiff. And what can you do with those? Students, I hope, will see what they can do. My own tentative solution is printed, by arrangement with the Editor, on another page ([458]). I do not pretend that it is perfect; in fact it seems to me to strike rather a vulgar note. At the same time it is copyright, and must not be set to music in the U.S.A.
I have left little time for comic poetry other than Limericks, but most of the above profound observations are equally applicable to both, except that in the case of the former it is usual to think of the last line first. Having done that you think of some good rhymes to the last line and hang them up in mid-air, so to speak. Then you think of something to say which will fit on to those rhymes. It is just like Limericks, only you start at the other end; indeed it is much easier than Limericks, though, I am glad to say, nobody believes this. If they did it would be even harder to get money out of Editors than it is already.
We will now write a comic poem about Spring Cleaning. We will have verses of six lines, five ten-syllable lines and one six-syllable. As a last line for the first verse I suggest
Where have they put my hat?
We now require two rhymes to hat. In the present context flat will obviously be one, and cat or drat will be another. Our resources at present are therefore as follows:—
Line 1— ——
" 2— ... flat.
" 3— ——
" 4— ... cat or drat.
" 5— ——
" 6—Where have they put my hat?
As for the blank lines, wife is certain to come in sooner or later, and we had better put that down, supported by life ("What a life!"), and knife or strife. There are no other rhymes, except rife, which is a useless word.
We now hold another parade:—
Terumti—umti—umti—umti—wife,
Terumti—umti—umti—umti—flat;
Teroodle—oodle—oodle—What a life!
Terumti—oodle—umti—oodle—cat (or drat);
Teroodle—umti—oodle—umti—knife (or strife);
Where have they put my hat?
All that remains now is to fill in the umti-oodles, and I can't be bothered to do that. There is nothing in it.
A. P. H.
"Will any gentleman requiring a House-keeper accept two decently brought up boys, age 12 and 8 years? Excellent cook and housekeeper; capable of full control."
Daily Paper.
Someone really ought to give these young sportsmen a trial.
