A Parody Anthology

THE REJECTED "NATIONAL HYMNS"

I

By H – y W. L – ngf – w

 
BACK in the years when Phlagstaff, the Dane, was monarch
Over the sea-ribb'd land of the fleet-footed Norsemen,
Once there went forth young Ursa to gaze at the heavens —
Ursa – the noblest of all the kings and horsemen.
 
 
Musing, he sat in his stirrups and viewed the horizon,
Where the Aurora lapt stars in a North-polar manner,
Wildly he stared, – for there in the heavens before him
Fluttered and flam'd the original Star Spangled Banner.
 

II

By J – hn Gr – nl – f Wh – t – r

 
My Native Land, thy Puritanic stock
Still finds its roots firm-bound in Plymouth Rock,
And all thy sons unite in one grand wish —
To keep the virtues of Preservéd Fish.
 
 
Preservéd Fish, the Deacon stern and true
Told our New England what her sons should do,
And if they swerve from loyalty and right,
Then the whole land is lost indeed in night.
 

III

By Dr. Ol – v – r W – nd – l H – lmes

 
A diagnosis of our history proves
Our native land a land its native loves;
Its birth a deed obstetric without peer,
Its growth a source of wonder far and near.
 
 
To love it more, behold how foreign shores
Sink into nothingness beside its stores;
Hyde Park at best – though counted ultra-grand —
The "Boston Common" of Victoria's land.
 

IV

By Ralph W – ldo Em – r – n

 
Source immaterial of material naught,
Focus of light infinitesimal,
Sum of all things by sleepless Nature wrought,
Of which the normal man is decimal.
 
 
Refract, in Prism immortal, from thy stars
To the stars bent incipient on our flag,
The beam translucent, neutrifying death,
And raise to immortality the rag.
 

V

By W – ll – m C – ll – n B – y – nt

 
The sun sinks softly to his Ev'ning Post,
The sun swells grandly to his morning crown;
Yet not a star our Flag of Heav'n has lost,
And not a sunset stripe with him goes down.
 
 
So thrones may fall, and from the dust of those,
New thrones may rise, to totter like the last;
But still our Country's nobler planet glows
While the eternal stars of Heaven are fast.
 

VI

By N. P. W-llis

 
One hue of our Flag is taken
From the cheeks of my blushing Pet,
And its stars beat time, and sparkle
Like the studs on her chemisette.
 
 
Its blue is the ocean shadow
That hides in her dreamy eyes,
It conquers all men, like her,
And still for a Union flies.
 

VII

By Th-m-s B-il-y Ald – ch

 
The little brown squirrel hops in the corn,
The cricket quaintly sings,
The emerald pigeon nods his head,
And the shad in the river springs,
The dainty sunflower hangs its head
On the shore of the summer sea;
And better far that I were dead,
If Maud did not love me.
 
 
I love the squirrel that hops in the corn,
And the cricket that quaintly sings;
And the emerald pigeon that nods his head,
And the shad that gaily springs.
I love the dainty sunflower too,
And Maud with her snowy breast;
I love them all; but I love – I love —
I love my country best.
 

Robert Henry Newell.

("Orpheus C. Kerr.")

A THEME WITH VARIATIONS

THEME

 
RIDE a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady ride on a white horse;
With rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes,
She shall have music wherever she goes.
 

(Variation I. – Edmund Spenser)

 
So on he pricked, and loe, he gan espy,
A market and a crosse of glist'ning stone,
And eke a merrie rablement thereby,
That with the musik of the strong trombone,
And shaumes, and trompets made most dyvillish mone.
And in their midst he saw a lady sweet,
That rode upon a milk white steed alone,
In scarlet robe ycladd and wimple meet,
Bedight with rings of gold, and bells about her feet.
 
 
Whereat the knight empassioned was so deepe,
His heart was perst with very agony.
Certes (said he) I will not eat, ne sleepe,
Till I have seen the royall maid more ny;
Then will I holde her in fast fealtie,
Whom then a carle adviséd, louting low,
That little neede there was for him to die,
Sithens in yon pavilion was the show,
Where she did ride, and he for two-and-six mote go.
 

(Variation II. – Dr. Jonathan Swift)

 
Our Chloe, fresh from London town,
To country B – y comes down.
Furnished with half-a-thousand graces
Of silks, brocades, and hoops, and laces;
And tired of winning coxcombs' hearts,
On simple bumpkins tries her arts.
Behold her ambling down the street
On her white palfrey, sleek and neat.
(Though rumor talks of gaming-tables,
And says 'twas won from C – 's stables.
And that, when duns demand their bill,
She satisfies them at quadrille.)
Her fingers are encased with rings,
Although she vows she hates the things.
("Oh, la! Why ever did you buy it?
Well – it's a pretty gem – I'll try it.")
The fine French fashions all combine
To make folk stare, and Chloe shine,
From ribbon'd hat with monstrous feather,
To bells upon her under-leather.
Now Chloe, why, do you suppose,
You wear those bells about your toes?
Is it, your feet with bells you deck
For want of bows about your neck?
 

(Variation III – Sir Walter Scott From "The Lady of the Cake")

 
"Who is this maid in wild array,
And riding in that curious way?
What mean the bells that jingle free
About her as in revelry?"
"'Tis Madge of Banbury," Roderick said.
"And she's a trifle off her head,
'Twas on her bridal morn, I ween,
When she to Graeme had wedded been,
The man who undertook to bake
Never sent home the wedding cake!
Since then she wears those bells and rings,
Since then she rides – but, hush, she sings."
She sung! The voice in other days
It had been difficult to praise,
And now it every sweetness lacked,
And voice and singer both were cracked.
 

SONG

 
They bid me ride the other way,
They say my brain is warp'd and wrung,
But, oh! the bridal bells are gay
That I about my feet have strung!
And when I face the horse's tail
I see once more in Banbury's vale
My Graeme's white plume before me wave,
So thus I'll ride until the grave.
They say that this is not my home,
'Mid Scotland's moors and Scotland's brakes.
But, oh! 'tis love that makes me roam
Forever in the land of cakes!
And woe betide the baker's guile,
Whose blight destroyed the maiden's smile!
O woe the day, and woe the deed,
And woa – gee woa – my bonnie steed!
 

Barry Pain.

THE POETS AT TEA

1. – (Macaulay, who made it)

 
POUR, varlet, pour the water,
The water steaming hot!
A spoonful for each man of us,
Another for the pot!
We shall not drink from amber,
Nor Capuan slave shall mix
For us the snows of Athos
With port at thirty-six;
Whiter than snow the crystals,
Grown sweet 'neath tropic fires,
More rich the herbs of China's field,
The pasture-lands more fragrance yield;
For ever let Britannia wield
The tea-pot of her sires!
 

2. – (Tennyson, who took it hot)

 
I think that I am drawing to an end:
For on a sudden came a gasp for breath,
And stretching of the hands, and blinded eyes,
And a great darkness falling on my soul.
O Hallelujah!.. Kindly pass the milk.
 

3. – (Swinburne, who let it get cold)

 
As the sin that was sweet in the sinning
Is foul in the ending thereof,
As the heat of the summer's beginning
Is past in the winter of love:
O purity, painful and pleading!
O coldness, ineffably gray!
Oh, hear us, our handmaid unheeding,
And take it away!
 

4. – (Cowper, who thoroughly enjoyed it)

 
The cosy fire is bright and gay,
The merry kettle boils away
And hums a cheerful song.
I sing the saucer and the cup;
Pray, Mary, fill the tea-pot up,
And do not make it strong.
 

5. – (Browning, who treated it allegorically)

 
Tut! Bah! We take as another case —
Pass the bills on the pills on the window-sill; notice the capsule
(A sick man's fancy, no doubt, but I place
Reliance on trade-marks, Sir) – so perhaps you'll
Excuse the digression – this cup which I hold
Light-poised – Bah, it's spilt in the bed! – well, let's on go —
Hold Bohea and sugar, Sir; if you were told
The sugar was salt, would the Bohea be Congo?
 

6. – (Wordsworth, who gave it away)

 
"Come, little cottage girl, you seem
To want my cup of tea;
And will you take a little cream?
Now tell the truth to me."
 
 
She had a rustic, woodland grin,
Her cheek was soft as silk,
And she replied, "Sir, please put in
A little drop of milk."
 
 
"Why, what put milk into your head?
'Tis cream my cows supply;"
And five times to the child I said,
"Why, pig-head, tell me, why?"
 
 
"You call me pig-head," she replied;
"My proper name is Ruth.
I called that milk" – she blushed with pride —
"You bade me speak the truth."
 

7. – (Poe, who got excited over it)

 
Here's a mellow cup of tea, golden tea!
What a world of rapturous thought its fragrance brings to me!
Oh, from out the silver cells
How it wells!
How it smells!
Keeping tune, tune, tune
To the tintinnabulation of the spoon.
And the kettle on the fire
Boils its spout off with desire,
With a desperate desire
And a crystalline endeavour
Now, now to sit, or never,
On the top of the pale-faced moon,
But he always came home to tea, tea, tea, tea, tea,
Tea to the n – th.
 

8. – (Rossetti, who took six cups of it)

 
The lilies lie in my lady's bower
(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost),
They faintly droop for a little hour;
My lady's head droops like a flower.
 
 
She took the porcelain in her hand
(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost);
She poured; I drank at her command;
Drank deep, and now – you understand!
(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost.)
 

9. – (Burns, who liked it adulterated)

 
Weel, gin ye speir, I'm no inclined,
Whusky or tay – to state my mind,
Fore ane or ither;
For, gin I tak the first, I'm fou,
And gin the next, I'm dull as you,
Mix a' thegither.
 

10. – (Walt Whitman, who didn't stay more than a minute)

 
One cup for my self-hood,
Many for you. Allons, camerados, we will drink together,
O hand-in-hand! That tea-spoon, please, when you've done with it.
What butter-colour'd hair you've got. I don't want to be personal.
All right, then, you needn't. You're a stale-cadaver.
Eighteen-pence if the bottles are returned.
Allons, from all bat-eyed formula.
 

Barry Pain.

THE POETS AT A HOUSE-PARTY

(A modern mortal having inadvertently stumbled in upon a house-party of poets given on Mount Olympus, being called upon to justify his presence there by writing a poem, offered a Limerick. Whereupon each poet scoffed, and the mortal, offended, challenged them to do better with the same theme)

 

The Limerick

 
A SCHOLARLY person named Finck
Went mad in the effort to think
Which were graver misplaced,
To dip pen in his paste,
Or dip his paste-brush in the ink.
 

(Omar Khayyam's version)

 
Stay, fellow-traveler, let us stop and think,
Pause and reflect on the abysmal brink;
Say, would you rather thrust your pen in paste,
Or dip your paste-brush carelessly in ink?
 

(Rudyard Kipling's version)

 
Here is a theme that is worthy of our cognizance,
A theme of great importance and a question for your ken;
Would you rather – stop and think well —
Dip your paste-brush in your ink-well,
Or in your pesky pasting-pot immerse your ink pen?
 

(Walt Whitman's version)

 
Hail, Camerados!
I salute you,
Also I salute the sewing-machine, and the flour-barrel, and the feather-duster.
What is an aborigine, anyhow?
I see a paste-pot.
Ay, and a well of ink.
Well, well!
Which shall I do?
Ah, the immortal fog.
What am I myself
But a meteor
In the fog?
 

(Chaucer's version)

 
A mayde ther ben, a wordy one and wyse,
Who wore a paire of gogles on her eyes.
O'er theemes of depest thogt her braine she werked,
Nor ever any knoty problemme sherked.
Yette when they askt her if she'd rather sinke
Her penne in payste, or eke her brushe in inke,
"Ah," quo' the canny mayde, "now wit ye wel,
I'm wyse enow to know – too wyse to tel."
 

(Henry James' version)

She luminously wavered, and I tentatively inferred that she would soon perfectly reconsider her not altogether unobvious course. Furiously, though with a tender, ebbing similitude, across her mental consciousness stole a re-culmination of all the truths she had ever known concerning, or even remotely relating to, the not-easily fathomed qualities of paste and ink. So she stood, focused in an intensity of soul-quivers, and I, all unrelenting, waited, though of a dim uncertainty whether, after all, it might not be only a dubitant problem.

(Swinburne's version)

 
Shall I dip, shall I dip it, Dolores,
This luminous paste-brush of thine?
Shall I sully its white-breasted glories,
Its fair, foam-flecked figure divine?
Or shall I – abstracted, unheeding —
Swish swirling this pen in my haste,
And, deaf to thy pitiful pleading,
Just jab it in paste?
 

(Eugene Field's version)

See the Ink Bottle on the Desk! It is full of Nice Black Ink. Why, the Paste-Pot is there, Too! Let us watch Papa as he sits down to write. Oh, he is going to paste a Second-hand Stamp on a Letter. See, he has dipped his Brush in the Ink by Mistake. Oh, what a Funny Mistake! Now, although it is Winter, we may have to Endure the Heated Term.

(Stephen Crane's version)

 
I stood upon a church spire,
A slender, pointed spire,
And I saw
Ranged in solemn row before me,
A paste-pot and an ink-pot.
I held in my either hand
A pen and a brush.
Ay, a pen and a brush.
Now this is the strange part;
I stood upon a church spire,
A slender, pointed spire,
Glad, exultant,
Because
The choice was mine!
Ay, mine!
As I stood upon a church spire,
A slender, pointed spire.
 

(Mr. Dooley's version)

"I see by th' pa-apers, Hennessy," said Mr. Dooley, "that they'se a question up for dee-bate."

"What's a dee-bate?" asked Mr. Hennessy.

"Well, it's different from a fish-bait," returned Mr. Dooley, "an' it's like this, if I can bate it into the thick head of ye. A lot of people argyfies an' argyfies to decide, as in the prisint instance, whether a man'd rayther shtick his pastin'-brush in his ink-shtand, or if he'd like it betther to be afther dippin' his pen in his pashte-pot."

"Thot," said Mr. Hennessy, "is a foolish question, an' only fools wud argyfy about such a thing as thot."

"That's what makes it a dee-bate," said Mr. Dooley.

Carolyn Wells.

AN OLD SONG BY NEW SINGERS

(In the original)

 
MARY had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow, —
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.
 

(As Austin Dobson writes it)

TRIOLET

 
A little lamb had Mary, sweet,
With a fleece that shamed the driven snow.
Not alone Mary went when she moved her feet
(For a little lamb had Mary, sweet),
And it tagged her 'round with a pensive bleat,
And wherever she went it wanted to go;
A little lamb had Mary, sweet,
With a fleece that shamed the driven snow.
 

(As Mr. Browning has it)

 
You knew her? – Mary the small,
How of a summer, – or, no, was it fall?
You'd never have thought it, never believed,
But the girl owned a lamb last fall.
Its wool was subtly, silky white,
Color of lucent obliteration of night,
Like the shimmering snow or – our Clothild's arm!
You've seen her arm – her right, I mean —
The other she scalded a-washing, I ween —
How white it is and soft and warm?
Ah, there was soul's heart-love, deep, true, and tender,
Wherever went Mary, the maiden so slender,
There followed, his all-absorbed passion, inciting,
That passionate lambkin – her soul's heart delighting —
Ay, every place that Mary sought in,
That lamb was sure to soon be caught in.
 

(As Longfellow might have done it)

 
Fair the daughter known as Mary,
Fair and full of fun and laughter,
Owned a lamb, a little he-goat,
Owned him all herself and solely.
White the lamb's wool as the Gotchi —
The great Gotchi, driving snowstorm.
Hither Mary went and thither,
But went with her to all places,
Sure as brook to run to river,
Her pet lambkin following with her.
 

(How Andrew Lang sings it)

RONDEAU

 
A wonderful lass was Marie, petite,
And she looked full fair and passing sweet —
And, oh! she owned – but cannot you guess
What pet can a maiden so love and caress
As a tiny lamb with a plaintive bleat,
And mud upon his dainty feet,
And a gentle veally odour of meat,
And a fleece to finger and kiss and press —
White as snow?
 
 
Wherever she wandered, in lane or street,
As she sauntered on, there at her feet
She would find that lambkin – bless
The dear! – treading on her dainty dress,
Her dainty dress, fresh and neat —
White as snow!
 

(Mr. Algernon C. Swinburne's idea)

VILLANELLE

 
Dewy-eyed with shimmering hair,
Maiden and lamb were a sight to see,
For her pet was white as she was fair.
 
 
And its lovely fleece was beyond compare,
And dearly it loved its Mistress Marie,
Dewy-eyed, with shimmering hair.
 
 
Its warpéd wool was an inwove snare,
To tangle her fingers in, where they could be
(For her pet was white as she was fair).
 
 
Lost from sight, both so snow-white were,
And the lambkin adored the maiden wee,
Dewy-eyed with shimmering hair.
 
 
Th' impassioned incarnation of rare,
Of limpid-eyed, luscious-lipped, loved beauty,
And her pet was white as she was fair.
 
 
Wherever she wandered, hither and there,
Wildly that lambkin sought with her to be,
With the dewy-eyed, with shimmering hair,
And a pet as white as its mistress was fair.
 

A. C. Wilkie.