“Wonderful as it may appear, the fact is what I have stated,” replied the young poet, putting down the silver saucer on a small japanned table before him, and opening the pouch at his side, from which he took a bundle of papers. “I may say that my compositions have attracted an extraordinary degree of attention in the world of letters. They are considered phenomena in literature, I assure you. Do not imagine I wish to overrate their value. I should not think of such a thing for the thousandth part of a moment; and to prove this to you, allow me to enrapture you with some of my effusions.”
“Certainly,” said Oriel, expecting at least to be amused.
“The effort of a profound sublimity I am about to breathe into your enlightened ears, you will have the intellectual discrimination to observe, is a perfect specimen of the true Anglian pastoral,” remarked Long Chi. “It has been created by that etherial sense of delicious enjoyment which your ancient poets called love. She for whose immaculate glorification it was called into existence, is a combination of miraculous excellencies—an incarnation of inconceivable perfections; and therefore your superior sagacities must not deem it at all more than ordinary extraordinary, if the merits of this indestructible conception fill you with a ravishing amazement.”
“From what you have said I should expect something particularly clever,” observed Zabra, evidently considerably amused by the poet’s phraseology.
“Clever!” exclaimed the young Chinese, with emphatic fervour. “By the great Fo you will find it supernaturally perfect.” Then arranging a rumple in his vest, and taking a glance of satisfaction at the reflection of his person in a large mirror beside him, with a slow and careful enunciation of each word, and a peculiar wave of the hand to mark the measure, the melancholy poet read the following verses:—
“Have you seen my Fee Fo Fum,
Tell me did she this way come?
She it is of whom I speak
Hath a pink on either cheek;
In the middle of her face
Is a flower of nameless grace,
Which the name of nose hath known,
And blooms the brightest when ’tis blown.
And her eyes are garden plots
Filled with young forget-me-nots,
That by lovers’ eyes are found
Flow’ring all the seasons round.
Shepherds did she this way come?
Have you seen my Fee Fo Fum?
“If below her nose you look,
There’s a little rosy nook;
Two twin buds half open ask,
Smiling, for some fondling task,
While within, in each row,
The lilies of the valley grow.
Just beneath them both begins
The blossom of the best of chins;
Fair and round, and smooth as silk,
And like a peach fresh bathed in milk.
Shepherds, did she this way come?
Have you seen my Fee Fo Fum?
“Breast of mutton, breast of veal,
All your merits now conceal;
What can ye afford to taste
Half so pleasant, half so chaste,
As the dainty bits that lie
Hid from epicurean eye?
What to them compared are ye,
Calipash and calipee?
Go! the sweeter flesh I’ve known
Wants no sauce to coax it down.
Shepherds, did she this way come?
Have you seen my Fee Fo Fum?
“She of whom I’m in pursuit
Hath to these a foot ‘to boot;’
Such a foot! ’tis like a rose,
Budding out with five small toes.
Calf’s foot, likened as a treat,
To a jelly it would beat:
She hath two—but my regard
Makes each foot excel a yard—
Go any lengths it might reveal,
Save when she turns upon her heel.
Shepherds, did she this way come?
Have you seen my Fee Fo Fum?”
“It certainly is a superlative composition,” remarked Zabra, attempting to conceal a laugh.