Outlook Odes

by T. W. H. Crosland

TO THE AMERICAN INVADER

Dear Sir or Madam
(As the case may be),—
Peace hath her victories as well as war
And sometimes
When I have occasion to travel
In this muggy metropolis of ours,
I begin to wonder whether I really am in London,
Or in New York.
On the tops of Atlas 'buses, and all other 'buses,
At the dining-tables of hotels at all prices,
At all theatres,
At all music-halls,
At all art galleries,
At all "evenings,"
At all social functions
Metropolitan in their nature
You, my dear Sir or Madam
(As the case may be),
Flourish and are to the fore,
There are people in the world
Who can pick you out at a glance.
The American woman, I am told,
Wears a certain kind of complexion
And a certain kind of blouse;
The American man, I am told,
Is weedy and anæmic,
A cigarette smoker,
A confirmed spitter,
And a moderate drinker;
He has a soft hat and unlimited dollars:
It is his dollars, of course,
Which are creating all the trouble.
They are beginning to circulate
And "geta-holt"
Wherever honest Britons most do congregate.
My tobacco merchant,
Who sells me two ounces of the real thing every week,
Has just been bought up by an American syndicate;
My barber is in the same case;
And I feel sure
That the woman who brings home "the laundry"
Is seriously considering proposals which have been made to her
By a syndicate of wealthy American gentlemen.
The electric-lighting plant in St. Paul's Cathedral
Was, it seems, paid for by an American.
Another American is doing something or other
With the underground railways,
And a third proposes to erect a building
Which will contain 6,000 rooms
On one of the best sites
On the new Holborn-Strand improvement.
Also I am using
An American roll-top desk,
An American typewriter,
An American chair,
American ink,
American pens,
American blotting paper,
American gum,
American paper fasteners,
American notions,
An American pattern of Ode,
And Heaven knows what besides.
I am all American.
I can whistle the "Star-Spangled Banner,"
I can, really!
Shake!
I like you,
There are no flies on you.
How are Mr. Roosevelt and all at home?
Is Pierpont keeping hearty?
Do you miss Carnegie—much?
Have you seen the Amur'can eagle at the Zoo?
Is Monroe's docterin'
Good for dyspepsia?
And it's O to be at home
On the rolling perarie,
With one's money well invested in English concerns,
Run by British labour,
And paying good old, fruity, nourishing British dividends!

TO THE "MUDDIED OAF"

My dear Muddied Oaf,—
While still a youth and all unknown to fame,
I went to school.
And on a certain Saturday
I put on a beautiful blue jersey, and some striped knickers,
And betook myself into a damp field
With my hands nice and clean,
And my hair parted.
Within an hour's time
My shins had the appearance of a broken paint can,
My garments were covered with mud,
One of my teeth had somehow got swallowed,
And my hair was out of joint.
When I come to think of it,
In that hour I must have been a Muddied Oaf,
Though I did not know what to call myself.
And no doubt on that and successive Saturday afternoons
I won my various journalistic Waterloos,
And contracted a stubborn cardiac hypertrophy
Which is even yet with me.
For nigh twenty years, however,
I have never, to my knowledge,
Taken part in a football match;
And, in spite of Mr. Kipling,
I do not propose to indulge again
In either Rugby or the other thing.
Youth loves to be muddied;
In old age one flings one's mud at other people.
I don't know, my dear Muddied Oaf,
How you like being called a Muddied Oaf.
The average Muddied Oaf of my acquaintance
Will not in the least understand
What Muddied Oaf means,
And even when a dozen reporters
Have explained it to him, dictionary in hand,
He will not care.
You cannot take the glory of having crumpled up the Footleum Otspurs out of a man
By calling him Muddy;
And as for Oaf,
When all is said
It is a poor synonym for "dashing forward."
No, my dear boy,
Phrases out of poems cannot damp your ardours.
And, so far as you are concerned,
Mr.
Rudyard
Kipling
May
Be
Blowed!
All the same, I assure you
As an old muddifier
That there is a great deal in what the gentleman says.
To a delicate age,
Rifle practice presents many attractions:
To shoot out of a No. 1 rifle
At a choice array of clay pipes, dancing globules, and cardboard rabbits
Is on the face of it
A gentleman's job:
You can do it with your hair parted:
And providing you don't get betting drinks
That you will ring the bell every time,
It doesn't cost much.
Regular practice
At the ordinary shooting booths
Will no doubt make a soldier and a gentleman of you,
And teach you to fear no Boer in shining armour.
These are points worth considering.
Also, the game does not hurt.
You need no lemon to help you through with it,
You run no risk of dislocation, fracture, hypertrophy, gouged eye, or broken neck,
You are on velvet all the time.
And when it comes to calling names,
You will have the honour and glory
Of being set down for a gallant and gilt-edged
Defender of your country,
Ponder it, O Muddied One,
And be wise.

TO A PUBLISHER

My dear Sir,—
In the whole round
Of animated nature
I am acquainted
With nothing or nobody
Who is, generally speaking,
So gay, gaudy, and interesting
As yourself.
From my youth up
I have been taught to look upon a publisher
As a very great person indeed.
When I was young and courted him
He it was drew from me
(As morn from Memnon)
Rivers of melody;
The which, however,
He took good care
Not to glorify with his imprimatur.
In those days
I looked upon publishing as a trade
And poetry as a profession.
Recently I have become wise,
And I feel in the heart of me
That publishing is a profession
And poetry a trade.
In spite of all that has been said to the contrary,
Barabbas
Certainly was not a publisher.
I have not had time to look him up,
But I feel quite sure
That he was not a professional man.
Besides,
If he was a publisher,
Why did he not publish something?
Echo and the Publishers' Association
No doubt answer
"Why?"
I sometimes think I should like to be a publisher myself.
It must be rather nice
To know for a fact
How many copies
Mr. So-and-so, and Mr. So-and-so, and Mr. So-and-so
Really do sell,
And how many "A second large edition"
And "Tenth impression"
Really mean.
It must be rather nice, also,
To go off to Switzerland every year
(With your wife)
To attend the Publishers' Conference.
It must be rather nice, too,
To know of a surety
That when an author is making money
Some publisher or other
Is making just as much,
And not infrequently a trifle more,
On the same work.
We have learnt of late
Greatly to our disgust
That when a publisher dies rich
He has made his money out of Apollinaris.
This is hard on authors,
Who, between ourselves,
Are not by any means bad people,
And invariably take a kindly interest
In their publishers' welfare.
On the other hand,
You must admit, sir,
That a publisher seldom goes bankrupt,
And does not as a rule sleep
Under his own counter.
Once
I lent a publisher half a crown.
He paid it back.
The average author would have taken it
As money earned.
So that, on the whole,
I am inclined to like publishers,
And to set them down in my tablets
For
Useful persons.