Only artificial poems can be well parodied, and the parody holds the mirror up to the artifices, so that even the author must make confession. The cleverest burlesques which have reached the public of late, reproducing in an exaggerated form the faults of the modern affected school of poetry, are those of C. S. Calverley.[133] The merit of his rhymed farces—which is precisely what he makes of his models—is nowhere more happily illustrated than in the following, which needs no introduction. It is entitled “Lovers, and a Reflection”:
“In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean;
Meaning, however, is no great matter),
Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;
“Through God’s own heather we wonned together,
I and my Willie (O love, my love!);
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitterbats wavered alow, above;
“Boats were curtsying, rising, bowing