Anthony C. Deane was born in 1870 and was the Seatonian prizeman in 1905 at Clare College, Cambridge. He has been Vicar of All Saints, Ennismore Gardens, since 1916. His long list of light verse and essays includes several excellent parodies, the most delightful being found in his New Rhymes for Old (1901).
It was the good ship Billycock, with thirteen men aboard,
Athirst to grapple with their country's foes,—
A crew, 'twill be admitted, not numerically fitted
To navigate a battleship in prose.
It was the good ship Billycock put out from Plymouth Sound,
While lustily the gallant heroes cheered,
And all the air was ringing with the merry bo'sun's singing,
Till in the gloom of night she disappeared.
But when the morning broke on her, behold, a dozen ships,
A dozen ships of France around her lay,
(Or, if that isn't plenty, I will gladly make it twenty),
And hemmed her close in Salamander Bay.
Then to the Lord High Admiral there spake a cabin-boy:
"Methinks," he said, "the odds are somewhat great,
And, in the present crisis, a cabin-boy's advice is
That you and France had better arbitrate!"
"Pooh!" said the Lord High Admiral, and slapped his manly chest,
"Pooh! That would be both cowardly and wrong;
Shall I, a gallant fighter, give the needy ballad-writer
No suitable material for song?"
"Nay—is the shorthand-writer here?—I tell you, one and all,
I mean to do my duty, as I ought;
With eager satisfaction let us clear the decks for action
And fight the craven Frenchmen!" So they fought.
And (after several stanzas which as yet are incomplete,
Describing all the fight in epic style)
When the Billycock was going, she'd a dozen prizes towing
(Or twenty, as above) in single file!
Ah, long in glowing English hearts the story will remain,
The memory of that historic day,
And, while we rule the ocean, we will picture with emotion
The Billycock in Salamander Bay!
P.S.—I've lately noticed that the critics—who, I think,
In praising my productions are remiss—
Quite easily are captured, and profess themselves enraptured,
By patriotic ditties such as this,
For making which you merely take some dauntless Englishmen,
Guns, heroism, slaughter, and a fleet—
Ingredients you mingle in a metre with a jingle,
And there you have your masterpiece complete!
Why, then, with labour infinite, produce a book of verse
To languish on the "All for Twopence" shelf?
The ballad bold and breezy comes particularly easy—
I mean to take to writing it myself!
Oh, I be vun of the useful troibe
O' rustic volk, I be;
And writin' gennelmen dÜ descroibe
The doin's o' such as we;
I don't knaw mooch o' corliflower plants,
I can't tell 'oes from trowels,
But 'ear me mix ma consonants,
An' moodle oop all ma vowels!
I talks in a wunnerful dialect
That vew can hunderstand,
'Tis Yorkshire-Zummerzet, I expect,
With a dash o' the Oirish brand;
Sometimes a bloomin' flower of speech
I picks from Cockney spots,
And when releegious truths I teach,
Obsairve ma richt gude Scots!
In most of the bukes, 'twas once the case
I 'adn't got much to do,
I blessed the 'eroine's purty face,
An' I seËd the 'ero through;
But now, I'm juist a pairsonage!
A power o' bukes there be
Which from the start to the very last page
Entoirely deal with me!
The wit or the point o' what I spakes
Ye've got to find if ye can;
A wunnerful difference spellin' makes
In the 'ands of a competent man!
I mayn't knaw mooch o' corliflower plants,
I mayn't knaw 'oes from trowels,
But I does ma wark, if ma consonants
Be properly mixed with ma vowels!
