Outlook Odes

by T. W. H. Crosland

TO THE LORD MAYOR

(November 9th)

My dear Lord Mayor,—
In Fleet Street all is gay
From min' office window I catch glimpses
Of fluttering bunting and swinging festoons.
I don't know who pays for them
(The bunting and the festoons, that is to say),
But I am informed by the police that they
(The bunting and the festoons, that is to say)
Have been hung up in honour of YOU.
I am also given to understand that there has been a big rush
For free windows to view your procession,
Which, all being well (the Procession, that is to say)
Will take place this day, Saturday;
For my own part I am going into the country,
And I dare say that on the whole
You wish you were going with me;
But ambition has its penalties,
And if you will become Lord Mayor of London
(A dizzy pinnacle to which none but the biggest-souled of us
May aspire)
I suppose you must put up with the attendant inconveniences
And publicity.
So far as I have been able to judge
(And I arrive at this conclusion by dint of steadfast abstinence
From witnessing Lord Mayors' Shows)
A Lord Mayor's Show is a distinctly inspiriting spectacle.
It may be set down
As the Londoner's one annual opportunity
Of seeing a circus for nothing;
Hence no doubt its popularity.
Think not, however, my dear Lord Mayor,
That I deprecate your little pageant, gratis though it be.
This country, as everybody knows,
Has for centuries past been on the high road to ruin,
And, in my humble opinion, its decadence has been largely due
To a deep-rooted tendency on the part of the powerful
To curtail and do away with mayoral and other shows.
Feasts and fairs have been kicked out of England
By the aforesaid powerful:
If you would be a respectable community
You must have neither feast nor fair,
And, if you would be a respectable citizen of any given city,
You must not array yourself in motley.
A man who walked into his bank
In yellow trousers and a blue silk hat
Would never be allowed an overdraft,
Black and subdued greens and browns being the only wear
For persons who would get on in life.
All this is wrong, my dear Lord Mayor.
I am of opinion that millionaires
Ought to wear purple breeches;
I see no reason why I myself
Should not have a morning coat of red, white, and blue,
Or a waistcoat emblazoned with the arms
Of the Worshipful Company of Spectaclemakers.
In fact, my dear Lord Mayor,
To perpetrate a Mrs. Meynellism,
The colour of life is the salt of it,
Just as the Lord Mayor's Show is the salt of the Lord Mayoralty
And the one beautiful thing
About life as people expect you to live it
In the Metropolis.
Come hither, come hither, my dear Lord Mayor,
And do not tremble so!
We are all glad to see you going up Fleet Street,
We are all glad to see you going home the other way;
And we shall be equally glad to see your successor
Getting through the same flowerful day's work
Next year.
Goodbye, my dear Lord Mayor!
And
Hooray?

TO THE MOTORIST

My dear Sir,—
When men have nightmares, they dream about you.
I myself have been chased over the tops of pinnacles
By flaming-eyed Panhards and Durkopps
In my sleep.
Nor is this all,
For if one brings oneself
To read reports of the proceedings of police courts
One finds that the average citizen
Gets more or less chased by you sir,
In his waking moments.
The Police I know, sir, seldom speak the truth:
They remember so well the day
When a horseless carriage had to be taken through the street
At the speed of a funeral march,
And with a red flag in front of it,
That the spectacle of an affable motorist
Bowling through a Surrey village
To the tune of six miles an hour
Shocks ther imagination,
And they believe for the rest of their natural lives
That the affable motorist aforesaid
Must have been travelling
At the rate of anything from 60 to 600 miles per minute.
Hence, my dear motorist,
It comes to pass that you are afforded so many opportunities
For airing your eloquence and the fatness of your purse
Before the police magistrates.
In my opinion it seems just possible
That the real trouble lies in the fact
That you, my dear sir, do actually
Go through villages at a very low speed,
And that really the best thing you can do
Would be to make a point of going through them
At the highest speed consistent
With the safety of your own person.
For if you did this,
No policeman of my acquaintance would be able to catch you,
Hence you would never be fined.
I have been out of sympathy with motor cars
Right up to the other night.
The other night I had the felicity to take a small trip on one.
The motorist would fain have driven me to my house,
Which is half an hour's cab drive from Charing Cross.
He offered to do the distance in ten minutes
And started stirring up his petroleum,
But I said "No. Let us go to the Marble Arch."
We went through the Mall, to Hyde Park Corner,
to South Kensington, to Paddington,
Into the Edgware Road, and so to the Marble Arch;
Time, at the outside, 15 min.
I am willing to admit
That we went down certain streets quite rapidly,
What time the policemen at odd corners stared stupidly,
And fumbled for their note-books.
But, as a result of that trip, my dear sir,
I have become an enthusiastic motorist.
I am convinced that speed and wind and the smell of petroleum mixed
Is the only thing which can be considered worth living for.
And if you happen to know anybody
Who would be willing to take
A typewriter and a pair of skates (not much worn)
In exchange for a Durkopp racer,
Kindly communicate with me.

TO NEXT CHRISTMAS

My dear Next Christmas,—
It is an excellent journalistic thing,
Not to say a poetical thing,
To be first in the field.
Behold me, therefore, advancing
At the head of that motley army
Which will inevitably hail you
When your time comes.
For your predecessor,
My dear Next Christmas,
I cannot say much.
He came in with several thousand inches of rain;
He went out on a watery moon.
There was turkey as usual,
Pudding as usual,
Mistletoe as usual,
Peace on earth as usual.
There were also the waits,
The young folks,
The postman,
The dustman
(No connection with the scavengers),
And the turncock.
We had a merry day.
Half the world pretended to be happy,
The other half pretended to be bored.
The festivities, I understand,
Are still being kept up.
There is a ping-pong tournament at the Queen's Hall
And a children's banquet
At the Guildhall on Tuesday evening;
Not to mention Mr. Dan Leno at Drury Lane
And Mr. De Wet at the Tweefontein.
It is all very cheerful
And very inspiriting.
All the same,
Let us not repine:
Christmas comes but once a year,
And it will come again, I fear.
This couplet, of course.
My dear Next Christmas,
Is not intended to be
Disrespectful to you;
It is inserted simply
For the sake of effect.
For I never miss an opportunity
Of bursting into rhyme.
When the way is plain before me.
My dear Next Christmas,
Do not be discouraged,
Come next year by all means;
If I said "Don't come"
You would come just the same.
Therefore, I say "Come,"
And I trust, my dear Next Christmas,
That when you do come
You will bring us a little luck.
Ring out the old, as it were,
And ring in the new;
Let candied peel
Be a trifle cheaper;
Let the war be settled
To the satisfaction of both parties;
Let the book trade flourish;
Let the Income-tax be reduced:
Let there be a fine Christmas Eve
And dry waits,
And a little skating next morning;
Let there be peace and plenty,
A pocket full of money,
And a barrel full of beer,
And all other good things,
Including a free and enlightened Press,
And a strong demand
For seasonable poetry.
My dear Next Christmas,
Here is my hand,
With my heart in it.
Till we meet again—
As Mr. Hall Caine says—
Addio.