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LYRA FRIVOLA
BY
A. D. GODLEY
AUTHOR OF "VERSES TO ORDER."
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1900
_Second Edition_
Most of the pieces in this book have appeared in the _St James's
Gazette_, the _Oxford Magazine_, or the _National Observer_. I have to
thank the Proprietors of these papers for permission to republish.
A. D. G.
CONTENTS
AFTER HORACE
THE JOURNALIST ABROAD
VERNAL VERSES
PENSEES DE NOEL
AD LECTIONEM SUAM
RUBAIYYAT OF MODERATIONS
LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND
THE PARADISE OF LECTURERS
A DIALOGUE ON ETHICS
PEDAGOGY
SONG FOR THE NAVY LEAGUE
A DREAM
THE SCHOOL of AGRICULTURE
THE LAST STRAW
THE 1713 AGAINST NEWNHAM
QUADRIVIAD, ll. 1-51
MUSICAL DEGREES
QUIETA MOVERE
GRAECULUS ESURIENS
THE ROAD TO RENOWN
L'AFFAIRE (CHAPTER ONE)
UNSELFISH DEVOTION
THE ARREST
"THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN"
THE PATRIOT'S "POME"
MR MORLEY'S APOLOGY
HONESTY REWARDED
THE END OF IT
A NEW DEPARTURE
MULLIGAN ON THE AUSTRIAN PARLIAMENT
BROKEN VOWS
THE TRUE REMEDY
UNITED IRELAND
JUSTICE FOR PRIVATE MULVANEY
AFTER HORACE
What asks the Bard? He prays for nought
But what the truly virtuous crave:
That is, the things he plainly ought
To have.
'Tis not for wealth, with all the shocks
That vex distracted millionaires,
Plagued by their fluctuating stocks
And shares:
While plutocrats their millions new
Expend upon each costly whim,
A great deal less than theirs will do
For him;
The simple incomes of the poor
His meek poetic soul content:
Say, L30,000 at four
Per cent.!
His taste in residence is plain:
No palaces his heart rejoice:
A cottage in a lane (Park Lane
For choice)--
Here be his days in quiet spent:
Here let him meditate the Muse:
Baronial Halls were only meant
For Jews,
And lands that stretch with endless span
From east to west, from south to north,
Are often much more trouble than
They're worth!
Let epicures who eat too much
Become uncomfortably stout:
Let gourmets feel th' approaching touch
Of gout,--
The Bard subsists on simpler food:
A dinner, not severely plain,
A pint or so of really good
Champagne--
Grant him but these, no care he'll take
Though Laureates bask in Fortune's smile,
Though Kiplings and Corellis make
Their pile:
Contented with a scantier dole
His humble Muse serenely jogs,
Remote from scenes where authors roll
Their logs:
Far from the madding crowd she lurks,
And really cares no single jot
Whether the public read her works
Or not!
THE JOURNALIST ABROAD
When Parson, Doctor, Don,--
In short, when all the nation
Goes gaily off upon
Its annual vacation,
Their cares professional
No more avail to bind them:
They go at Pleasure's call
And leave their trades behind them.
Like them, departs afar
From England's fogs and vapours
The literary star,
The writer for the papers:
But not, like them, at home
Leaves he his calling's fetters:
Nought can release him from
The tyranny of Letters!
When classic scenes amid
For rest and peace he hankers,
_Amari aliquid_
His joys aesthetic cankers:
Whate'er he sees, he knows
He has to write upon it
A paragraph of prose
Or possibly a sonnet:
By mountain lakelets blue,
'Mid wild romantic heath, he's
A martyr always to
_Scribendi cacoethes_:
The Naiad-haunted stream
Or lonely mountain-top he
Considers as a theme
Available for "copy."
If on the sunlit main
With ardour rapt he gazes,
He's torturing his brain
For neat pictorial phrases:
When in a ship or boat
He navigates the briny
(And here 'tis his to quote
Examples set by Heine)
While fellow-passengers
Lie stretched in mere prostration,
He duly registers
Each horrible sensation--
He notes his qualms with care,
And bids the public know 'em
In "Thoughts on Mal de Mer,"
Or "Nausea: a Poem."
* * * *
Such is his earthly lot:
Nor is it wholly certain
If Death for him or not
Rings down the final curtain,
Or if, when hence he's fled
To worlds or worse or better,
He'll send per Mr St--d
A crisp descriptive letter!
VERNAL VERSES
When early worms began to crawl, and early birds to sing,
And frost, and mud, and snow, and rain proclaimed the jocund spring,
Its all-pervading influence the Poet's soul obeyed--
He made a song to greet the Spring, and this is what he made:--
They sadly lacked enlightenment, our ancestors of old,
Who used to suffer simply from an ordinary cold:
But we, of Science' mysteries less ignorant by far,
Have nothing less distinguished than a Bronchial Catarrh!
O when your head's a lump of lead and nought can do but sneeze:
Whene'er in turn you freeze and burn, and then you burn and freeze:--
It does not mean you're going to die, although you think you are--
These are the primal symptoms of a Bronchial Catarrh.
And when you've taken drugs and pills, and stayed indoors a week,
Yet still your chest with pain opprest will hardly let you speak:
Amid your darksome miseries be this your guiding star--
'Tis simply the remainder of a Bronchial Catarrh.
In various ways do various men invite misfortune's rods,--
Some row within their College boat,--some Logic read for Mods.:
But oh! of all the human ills our happiness that mar
I do not know the equal of a Bronchial Catarrh!
PENSEES DE NOEL
When the landlord wants the rent
Of your humble tenement,
When the Christmas bills begin
Daily, hourly pouring in,
When you pay your gas and poor rate,
Tip the rector, fee the curate,
Let this thought your spirit cheer--
Christmas comes but once a year.
When the man who brings the coal
Claims his customary dole:
When the postman rings and knocks
For his usual Christmas-box:
When you're dunned by half the town
With demands for half-a-crown,--
Think, although they cost you dear,
Christmas comes but once a year.
When you roam from shop to shop,
Seeking, till you nearly drop,
Christmas cards and small donations
For the maw of your relations,
Questing vainly 'mid the heap
For a thing that's nice, and cheap:
Think, and check the rising tear,
Christmas comes but once a year.
Though for three successive days
Business quits her usual ways,
Though the milkman's voice be dumb,
Though the paper doesn't come;
Though you want tobacco, but
Find that all the shops are shut:
Bravely still your sorrows bear--
Christmas comes but once a year.
When mince-pies you can't digest
Join with waits to break your rest:
When, oh when, to crown your woe,
Persons who might better know
Think it needful that you should
Don a gay convivial mood;--
Bear with fortitude and patience
These afflicting dispensations:
Man was born to suffer here:
Christmas comes but once a year.
AD LECTIONEM SUAM
When Autumn's winds denude the grove,
I seek my Lecture, where it lurks
'Mid the unpublished portion of
My works,
And ponder, while its sheets I scan,
How many years away have slipt
Since first I penned that ancient man-
uscript.
I know thee well--nor can mistake
The old accustomed pencil stroke
Denoting where I mostly make
A joke,--
Or where coy brackets signify
Those echoes faint of classic wit
Which, if a lady's present, I
Omit.
Though Truth enlarge her widening range,
And Knowledge be with time increased,
While thou, my Lecture! dost not change
The least,
But fixed immutable amidst
The advent of a newer lore,
Maintainest calmly what thou didst
Before:
Though still malignity avows
That unsuccessful candidates
To thee ascribe their frequent ploughs
In Greats--
Once more for intellectual food
Thou'lt serve: an added phrase or two
Will make thee really just as good
As new:
And listening crowds, that throng the spot,
Will still as usual complain
That "Here's the old familiar rot
Again!"
RUBAIYYAT OF MODERATIONS
I
Wake! for the Nightingale upon the Bough
Has sung of Moderations: ay, and now
Pales in the Firmament above the Schools
The Constellation of the boding Plough.
II
I too in distant Ages long ago
To him that ploughed me gave a Quid or so:
It was a Fraud: it was not good enough;
Ne'er for my Quid had I my Quid pro Quo.
III
Yet--for the Man who pays his painful Pence
Some Laws may frame from dark Experience:
Still from the Wells of harsh Adversity
May Wisdom draw the Pail of Common Sense--
IV
Take these few Rules, which--carefully rehearsed--
Will land the User safely in a First,
Second, or Third, or Gulf: and after all
There's nothing lower than a Plough at worst.
V
Plain is the Trick of doing Latin Prose,
An Esse Videantur at the Close
Makes it to all Intents and Purposes
As good as anything of Cicero's.
VI
Yet let it not your anxious Mind perturb
Should Grammar's Law your Diction fail to curb:
Be comforted: it is like Tacitus:
Tis mostly done by leaving out the Verb.
VII
Mark well the Point: and thus your Answer fit
That you thereto all Reference omit,
But argue still about it and about
Of This, and That, and T'Other--not of It.
VIII
Say, why should You upon your proper Hook
Dilate on Things which whoso cares to look
Will find, in Libraries or otherwhere,
Already stated in a printed Book?
IX
Keep clear of Facts: the Fool who deals in those
A Mucker he inevitably goes:
The dusty Don who looks your Paper o'er
He knows about it all--or thinks he knows.
X
A Pipe, a Teapot, and a Pencil blue,
A Crib, perchance a Lexicon--and You
Beside him singing in a Wilderness
Of Suppositions palpably untrue--
XI
'Tis all he needs: he is content with these:
Not Facts he wants, but soft Hypotheses
Which none need take the Pains to verify:
This is the Way that Men obtain Degrees!
XII
'Twixt Right and Wrong the Difference is dim:
'Tis settled by the Moderator's Whim:
Perchance the Delta on your Paper marked
Means that his Lunch has disagreed with him:
XIII
Perchance the Issue lies in Fortune's Lap:
For if the Names be shaken in a Cap
(As some aver) then Truth and Fallacy
No longer signify a single Rap.
XIV
Nay! till the Hour for pouring out the Cup
Of Tea post-prandial calls you home to sup,
And from the dark Invigilator's Chair
The mild Muezzin whispers "Time is Up"--
XV
The Moving Finger writes: then, having writ,
The Product of your Scholarship and Wit
Deposit in the proper Pigeonhole--
And thank your Stars that there's an End of it!
LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND
When we're daily called to arms by continual alarms,
And the journalist unceasingly dilates
On the agitating fact that we're soon to be attacked
By the Germans, or the Russians, or the States:
When the papers all are swelling with a patriotic rage,
And are hurling a defiance or a threat,
Then I cool my martial ardour with the pacifying page
Of the _Oxford University Gazette_.
When I hanker for a statement that is practical and dry
(Being sated with sensation in excess,
With the vespertinal rumour and the matutinal lie
Which adorn the lucubrations of the Press),
Then I turn me to the columns where there's nothing to attract,
Or the interest to waken and to whet,
And I revel in a banquet of unmitigated fact
In the _Oxford University Gazette_.
When the Laureate obedient to an editor's decree
Puts his verses in the columns of the _Times_;
When the endless minor poet in an endless minor key
Gives the public his unnecessary rhymes,
When you're weary of the poems which they constantly compose,
And endeavour their existence to forget,
You may seek and find repose in the satisfying prose
Of the _Oxford University Gazette_.
In that soporific journal you may stupefy the mind
With the influence narcotic which it draws
From the Latest Information about Scholarships Combined
Or the contemplated changes in a clause:
Place me somewhere that is far from the _Standard_ and the _Star_,
From the fever and the literary fret,--
And the harassed spirit's balm be the academic calm
Of the _Oxford University Gazette_!
THE PARADISE OF LECTURERS
When you might be a name for the world to acclaim,
and when Opulence dawns on the view,
Why slave like a Turk at Collegiate work
for a wholly inadequate screw?
Why grind at the trade--insufficiently paid--of
instructing for Mods and for Greats,
When fortunes immense are diurnally made
by a lecturing tour in the States?
Do you know that in scores they will pay at the doors--these
millions in darkness who grope--
For a glimpse of Mark Twain or a word from Hall Caine
or a reading from Anthony Hope?
We are ignorant here of the glorious career
which conspicuous talent awaits:
Not a master of style but is making his pile
by the lectures he gives in the States!
With amazement I hear of the chances they
lose--of the simply incredible sums
Which a Barrie might have (if he did not refuse)
for reciting _A Window in Thrums_:
Of the prospects of gain which are offered
in vain as a sop to the Laureate's pride:
Of the price which I learn Mr Bradshaw
might earn by declaiming his excellent Guide.
Columbia! desist from soliciting those who
your bribes and petitions contemn:
Though plutocrats scorn the rewards you
propose, there are others superior to them:
Why burden the proud with superfluous
pelf, who wealth in abundance possess,
When indigent Worth (I allude to myself)
would go for substantially less?
For Europe, I know, to oblivion may doom
the fruits of my talented brain,
But they're perfectly sure of creating a boom
in the wilds of Kentucky and Maine:
They'll appreciate _there_ my illustrious work
on the way to make Pindar to scan,
And Culture will hum in the State of New York
when I read it my essay on 'An! [1]
I've a scheme, which is this:--I will start
for the West as a Limited Lecturing Co.,
And the public invite in the same to invest
to the tune of a million or so:
They will all be recouped for initial expense
by receiving their share of the "gates,"
Which I venture to think will be truly
immense when I lecture on Prose in the States.
Thus Merit will not be permitted to rot--as
it does--on Obscurity's shelf:
Thus the national hoard shall with profit be
stored (with a trifle of course for myself):
For lectures are dear in that fortunate
sphere, and are paid for at fabulous rates,--
All the gold of Klondike isn't anything like
to the sums that are made in the States!
[1. Transcriber's note: In the original book, the two characters
preceding the exclamation mark are the Greek "Alpha" and "nu". They
appear to be preceded by the Greek rough-breathing diacritical, making
the three characters together rhyme with "Maine", two lines earlier.]
A DIALOGUE ON ETHICS
Said the Isis to the Cherwell in a tone of indignation,
"With a blush of conscious virtue your enormities I see:
And I wish that a reversal of the laws of gravitation
Would prevent your vicious current from contaminating me!
With your hedonists who grovel on a cushion with a novel
(Which is sure to sap the morals and the intellect to stunt),
And the spectacle nefarious of your idle, gay Lotharios
Who pursue a mild flirtation in a misdirected punt!"
Said the Cherwell to the Isis, "You may talk about my vices--
But of all the sights of sorrow since the universe began,
Just commend me to the patience that can bear the degradations
Which inflicted are by Rowing on the dignity of man:
The unspeakable reproaches which are lavished by your coaches--
On my sense of what is proper they continually jar"--
("It is simply _Mos Majorum_--'twas their fathers' way before 'em--
'Tis a kind of ancient Cussed 'em"--said the Isis to the Cher.)
"Are we men and are we Britons? shall we ne'er obtain a quittance"--
Said the Cherwell to the Isis--"from the tyrants of the oar?
O it's Youth in a Canader with the willow boughs to shade her
And a chaperone discreetly in attendance (on the shore),
O it's cultivated leisure that is life's supremest treasure,
Far from athletes merely brutal, and from Philistines afar:
I've a natural aversion to gratuitous exertion,
And I'm prone to mild flirtation," said the unrepentant Cher.
But in accents of the sternest, "Life is Real: Life is Earnest,"
(Said the grim rebuking Isis to his tributary stream);
"Don't you know the Joy of Living is in honourably Striving,
Don't you know the Chase of Pleasure is a vain delusive Dream?
When they toil and when they shiver in the tempests on the River,
When they're faint and spent and weary, and they have
to pull it through,
'Tis in Action stern and zealous that they truly find a _Telos_, [1]
Though a moment's relaxation be afforded them by you!"
Said the Cherwell to the Isis, "When the trees are clad in greenness,
When the Eights are fairly over, and it's drawing near Commem.,
It is Ver and it is Venus that shall judge the case between us,
And I think for all your maxims that you won't compete with them!
Then despite their boasted virtue shall your athletes all desert you
(Come to me for information if you don't know where they are):
For it's _ina scholaxomen_ [2] that's the proper end of Woman
And of Man--at least in summer," said the easy-going Cher.
[1. Transcriber's note: The word "Telos" was transliterated from the
Greek characters Tau, epsilon, lambda, omicron, and sigma.]
[2. Transcriber's note: The two words "ina scholaxomen" were
transliterated from Greek as follows: "ina"--iota (possibly accompanied
by the rough-breathing diacritical), nu, alpha; "scholaxomen"--sigma,
chi, omicron, lambda, alpha (possibly with the soft-breathing
diacritical), xi, omega, mu, epsilon, nu.]
PEDAGOGY
Our fathers on the pedagogue held sentiments irrational,
Curricula for training him 'twas never theirs to know,
And when he taught the way he ought, by genius educational,
They gave their thanks to Providence, who made him do it so.
But our developed intellect and keener perspicacity
Has all reduced to system now and _a priori_ rule:
We've altogether ceased to trust in natural capacity,
And pin alone our faith upon a Pedagogy School.
Don't talk to me of knowledge gained by base experience practical
(A thing that's wholly obsolete and laid upon the shelf):
Don't waste your time in aiming at exactitude syntactical,
Or hold that he who teaches Greek should know that Greek himself:
For if you wish to face the truth, and fact no more to see awry--
Who strives to wake the dormant mind of unreceptive imps
Need only read the works of Rein on Education's Theory
And study the immortal tomes of Ziegler and De Guimps!
Whene'er of old a boy was dull or quite adverse to knowledge, he
Was set an imposition or corrected with a switch:
Far different our practice is, who reign by Methodology
And guide the dunce by precepts learnt from Landon or from Fitch:
'Twas difficult by rule of thumb to check unseemly merriment,
To make your class their pastor treat with proper due regard--
'Tis easy quite for specialists in Juvenile Temperament,
Who know the books on Punishment and also on Reward!
There's no demand for authors now of erudite _opuscula_,
For Wranglers or for Science men or linguists of repute:
No cricketers can gain a post by mere distinction muscular,
No Socker Blues can hope to teach the young idea to Shoot:
Read Lange his Psychology--Didactics of Comenius--
By works like these and only these your prudent mind prepare:
For if you've nought but scholarship or independent genius
You'd better far adopt the Bar and make your fortune there!
O all ye ancient dominies whose names are writ in history--
Shade of the late Orbilius, and ghost of Dr Parr,
Howe'er you got your fame of old--the reason's wrapt in mystery--
Where'er you be, I hope you see how obsolete you are!
'Tis Handbooks make the Pedagogue: O great, eternal verity!
O fact of which our ancestors could ne'er obtain a glimpse!
But we'll proclaim the truth abroad and noise it to posterity,
Our watchword a curriculum--our shibboleth DE GUIMPS!
SONG FOR THE NAVY LEAGUE
(Dedicated without permission to LORD CHARLES BERESFORD.)
O where be all those mariners bold
who used to control the sea,
The Admiral great and the bo'sun's mate
and the skipper who skipped so free?
O what has become of our midshipmites,
the terror of every foe,
And the captain brave who dares the wave
when the stormy winds do blow?
CHORUS
_For the tar may roam, but the tar comes home
to wherever his home may be,
With a Yo, heave ho, and a _o e to_, [1] and a
Master of Arts Degree_!
They have gone to imbibe the classical lore
of Learning's ancient seat
(They are sadly at sea in the classics as
yet, though _classis_ is Latin for fleet),
It is there you will find those naval men,
by the Isis and eke the Cher.,
For Scholarship is the only ship that is fit
for a bold Jack Tar.
He has bartered his rum for a coach and a
crib, at the First Lord's stern decree,
And he learns the use of the rocket and
squib (which are useful as lights at sea):
And they train him in part of the nautical
art, as much as a landsman can,
For they teach him to paddle the gay canoe,
and to row the rash randan.
Should he e'er be inclined his Tutors and
Deans to look with contempt upon
(Observing the maxims of Raleigh and
Drake, who never thought much of a Don),
Let him think there are things in the nautical
line that even a Don can do,
For only too well are examiners versed in
the way to plough the Blue!
Though a Captain _per se_ is an excellent
thing for repelling his country's foes,
He is better by far, as an engine of war, with
a knowledge of Logic and Prose:
And a bold A.B. is the nation's pride, in
his rude uncultured way,
But prouder still will the nation be when
he's also a bold B.A.!
CHORUS
For the Horse Marine will be Tutor and Dean,
in the glorious days to be,
With his Yo, heave ho, and his _o e to_, [1] and a
Master of Arts degree!
[1. Transcriber's note: the character group "o e to" was transliterated
from the Greek characters omicron (with the rough-breathing
diacritical), eta (with the rough-breathing diacritical), tau, and
omicron (with the soft-breathing diacritical).]
A DREAM
In sleep the errant phantasy,
No more by sense imprisoned,
Creates what possibly might be
But actually isn't:
And this my tale is past belief,
Of truth and reason emptied,
'Tis fiction manifest--in brief
I was asleep, and dreamt it.
I met a man by Isis' stream,
Whose phrase discreet and prudent,
Whose penchant for a learned theme
Proclaimed the Serious Student:
I never knew a scholar who
Could more at ease converse on
The latest _Classical Review_
Than that superior person.
He spoke of books--all manly sports
He deemed but meet for scoffing:
He did not know the Racquet Courts--
He'd never heard of golfing--
Professors ne'er were half so wise,
Nor Readers more sedate!
He was--I learnt with some surprise--
An undergraduate.
Another man I met, whose head
Was crammed with pastime's annals,
And who, to judge from what he said,
Must simply live in flannels:
A shallow mind his talk proclaimed,
And showed of culture no trace:
One "book" and one alone he named--
His own--'twas on the Boat-race.
"Of course," you cry, "some brainless lad,
Some scion of ancient Tories,
Bob Acres, sent to Oxford _ad
Emolliendos mores_,
Meant but to drain the festive glass
And win the athlete's pewter!"
There you are wrong: this person was
That undergraduate's Tutor.
* * * *
Twas but a dream, I said above,
In concrete truth deficient,
Belonging to the region of
The wholly Unconditioned:
Yet, when I see how strange the ways
Of undergrad. and Don are,
Methinks it was, in classic phrase,
Not _upar_ less than _onar_. [1]
[1. Transcriber's note: the words "upar" and "onar" were transliterated
from the Greek as follows: "upar"--upsilon (possibly with the
rough-breathing diacritical), pi, alpha, and rho; "onar"--omicron
(possibly with the rough-breathing diacritical), nu, alpha, and rho.]