John Bull. "'IF I HAD WIT ENOUGH TO GET OUT OF THIS WOOD,' ..."
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III., Sc. 1.
You notice the artistic parallelism of this lyric; I mean, "The brave birds singing" in one verse and "The brave world singing" in the next. That is a tip I got from Hebrew poetry, especially the Psalms: "One day telleth another; and one night certifieth another," and so on. It is a useful trick to remember, and is employed freely by many modern writers, the author of "The King's Regulations," for example, who in Regulation 1680 has the fine line:—
"Disembarkations are carried out in a similar manner to embarkations."
That goes well to the Chant in C major by Mr. P. Humphreys.
But I am wandering. It is becoming clear to me now that I shall not have time to do Blank Verse or Hymns (Ancient and Modern) in this lecture, after all, so I will give you a rough outline of that special kind of lyric, the Topical Song. All that is required for this class of work is a good refrain or central idea; when you have got that, you see how many topics you can tack on to it. But if you can tack on Mr. Winston Churchill you need not bother about the others.
Our central idea will be "Rations," and the song will be called Heaps and Heaps:—
Now Jimmy Brown
(always begin like that)