Outlook Odes

by T. W. H. Crosland

TO THE DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER

My dear Deceased Wife's Sister,—
(The wife of my bosom being still happily amongst us,
The above,
As the learned might say,
Is a misnomer.
You, on the other hand,
Are a Miss ——,
And I would not marry you
To save myself from boiling oil.
If I had wanted you
I could have had you in the beginning.
And if I had married you
The wife of my bosom
Would have been aunt to her own children, as it were.
And in the event of your demise
She would also have been
My deceased wife's sister—
Which is at once inconsequential and peculiar.
A man cannot marry his deceased wife's sister
Till she is dead.
This is quite wrong.
In my humble opinion
It is also quite right.
Anyway, we will close this parenthesis
With the usual sign,
And proceed along the primrose path
Of business)
As I have already remarked
In my usual quaint way,
A man cannot marry
His deceased wife's sister
Until she is dead.
(By "she" of course I mean the man's wife.)
The bishops declare
That he cannot marry her anyhow
(By "he" I mean the man,
And by "her" of course
The bishops mean
The man's deceased wife's sister.
I desire to be explicit on these points
In order that we may avoid
Ambiguity.)
Well, my dear deceased wife's sister
(Always remembering that Mrs. —— is still alive),
What is your view of matters?
Do you really wish to marry me or not?
Have you any opinions about Lord Hugh Cecil?
If so,
Kindly state them.
Was he or was he not justified in demanding
On Wednesday night
That the word "Shame"
Be put upon the record?
If so, why not?
If not, why so?
My dear deceased wife's sister,
Do not let us get confused.
Let us clear our minds of Cecil.
After all is said
You are the Auntie of my children,
And the great-niece of my wife's great-uncle,
Not to say the sister-in-law of my children's father.
Come along,
Here are ducats,
A ring,
And a Canadian parson,
Let us get married at once.
Of course it is so sudden.
It always is.
And we have forgotten about Mrs. ——
We always do.
But I tell you here and now,
And in good set terms,
My dear deceased wife's sister,
That if I wish to marry
Either you or any more of your mother's daughters
(Which Heaven forbid),
I shall go to Canada or Australia
And marry 'em.

TO THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

(Before his Retirement)

My dear Sir Michael Hicks-Beach,—
The devotion of one's life
To the service of the Muses
And the neglect of golden opportunities,
Is not without its compensations,
One of the chief of them being
That the devotee can look into the eyes
Of the most rapacious of Chancellors of the Exchequer
And smile.
For my own part, dear Sir Michael,
By the writing of Odes,
And general inattention to business,
I am able to knock up a precarious one hundred and seventy-five pounds per annum;
On one hundred and sixty pounds of that sum
I am always careful to claim exemption,
Which leaves a taxable balance of fifteen pounds.
Out of this balance, my dear old friend, you are welcome to take fifteen shillings,
Or twenty-three and fourpence ha'penny,
Or twenty-seven and sixpence farthing,
Or any other sum that you think might come in handy.
Indeed, in all the circumstances
(And without prejudice),
I should not be greatly upset
If you took the lot.
For well I wot
That the late War
Has cost more than the price of a row of houses,
And that it is my duty, as a full-blooded patriot,
To pay, and pay cheerfully;
And particularly so
Since it is not due for a month or so.
Ah, my dear Chancellor,
Who fears Black Michael
Must himself be black.
They call you Black because you want a lot of money;
I call them black because they've got it.
However, this is not a Ruskinian oration,
But an Ode,
And I shall therefore proceed to give you a few tips
As to legitimate methods of raising the wind.
Judging by your recent efforts,
You appear to be short of ideas.
Here you are.
Put sixpence a hundred on cigars.
"See What You Save"
Will see me through somehow;
Besides, I never smoke cigars.
Put a bit more on all sorts of wines and liqueurs,
Excepting Sauterne and Benedictine
(Of which I am particularly fond);
Put a bit more on beer,
And sixpence a pound on arsenic
(As a rule I do not take either);
Tax railway tickets
(I invariably travel on "passes");
Tax perambulators
(My sons and heirs can all walk);
Tax sky-signs
(Like the Omar Khayyam Club,
I never advertise);
Tax bicycles
(I abhor exertion);
Tax gold and gem jewellery
(I never keep it);
Tax fiction
And "Fourth enormous" editions
(We shall then hear less about them)
Abolish the free breakfast-table
(I invariably begin the day with lunch);
Also tax ground-rents
(I am not the Duke of Bedford);
And seize all the unclaimed bank balances
(None of which by any possibility
Can be mine).
In fact, my dear Sir Michael,
Tax and seize whatever you like.
The opulent, and the well-to-do,
Not to mention the rascally working classes,
Will have to put up with it.

TO THE COMMON GOLFER

My dear Common Golfer,—
The game you affect
Is a great game
Played by yourself
And all the crowned heads of Europe,
Not to mention all the fat persons who desire to bant,
All the thin persons who desire to become
Vigorous and muscular, as it were,
All the clerks who desire to pass for dukes,
And all the dukes who relish the society of clerks.
It is a great game:
The people who play it are not the fault of the game.
It is also a good game.
If I am not mistaken,
It is a game that originally came out of Scotland;
Therefore it must be a good game.
For everything that comes out of Scotland is good,
Even the Scot.
And golf being a great and good game
I do not see any tremendous reason
Why you, my dear Common Golfer,
Should not engage in it if you so choose.
On the other hand, I wish from the bottom of my heart
That you did not engage in it.
I know a bank
Whereon the wild thyme blows
(Or ought to blow):
Oft of a pleasant summer morn
Have I taken a cheap ticket
To a station which is not far from that bank,
And there (on the bank, that is to say) reclined me
What time I looked up into the blue dome,
And watched the lazy-pacing clouds,
And flicked away the midges,
And wished my name was Corydon,
And remembered bits of Keats
And bits of Herrick
And bits of business,
And so forth.
Oft, I say, have I done these things;
But of late I no longer do them,
Inasmuch as my bank
Has become (if I may so term it)
Golf-ridden.
The other day I repaired to the said bank
On rural musings bent.
What did I find?
Why, my dear old thymy bank
Was in the possession
Of half a dozen gross fellows in red coats,
Thy had pipes in their mouths,
And a jar of beer in their midst,
And they were actually talking and laughing
In the most uproarious fashion.
I heard one of them say
"Why did Arthur Bawl-Fore?"
And the others thought hard,
And trifled with their brassies and things,
And could not make answer.
O, my dear Common Golfer,
You were of that party;
You were;
You are always of such parties,
You are always sitting
On other people's thymy banks,
And saying, "Why did So-and-so so-and-so?"
And depleting village public-houses of good beer,
And turning whole village populations into caddies,
And dotting the landscape with your red coats,
And generally appropriating the fair face of Nature.
I cannot stop you, my dear Common Golfer,
I cannot, O I cannot!
Would that I could. O would that I could!
In which case, perhaps, I wouldn't.
No, my dear boy,
Rural England is yours,
Also the sea-side,
Take them, old man, take them;
I hand them over to you with the best heart in the world.
Take them—they are yours—
And excuse these tears.