A Parody Anthology :: AFTER DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI A CHRISTMAS WAIL

AFTER DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI A CHRISTMAS WAIL

Carolyn Wells

(Not by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

ON Christmas day I dined with Brown.

(Oh the dinner was fine to see!)

I drove to his house, right merrily down,

To a western square of London town.

(And I moan and I cry, Woe's me!)

We dined off turkey and Christmas beef:

(Oh the dinner was fine to see!)

My anguish is sore and my comfort's brief,

And nought but blue pills can ease my grief,

(As I moan and I cry, Woe's me!)

We gorged plum-pudding and hot mince pies,

(Oh the dinner was fine to see!)

And other nameless atrocities,

The weight of which on my—bosom lies.

(And I moan and I cry, Woe's me!)

We drank dry Clicquot and rare old port,

(Oh the dinner was fine to see!)

And I pledged my host for a right good sort

In bumpers of both, for I never thought

(I should moan and cry, Woe's me!)

But I woke next day with a fearful head,

(Oh that dinner was fine to see!)

And on my chest is a weight like lead,

And I frequently wish that I were dead,

(And I moan and I cry, Woe's me!)

And as for Brown—why the truth to tell—

(Oh that dinner was fine to see!)

I hate him now with the hate of hell,

Though before I loved him passing well,

(And I moan and I cry, Woe's me!)

Anonymous.

BALLAD

THE auld wife sat at her ivied door

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

A thing she had frequently done before,

And her spectacles lay on her apron'd knees.

The piper he piped on the hill-top high

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

Till the cow said "I die," and the goose ask'd "Why?"

And the dog said nothing, but search'd for fleas.

The farmer he strode through the square farmyard

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);

His last brew of ale was a trifle hard—

The connection of which with the plot one sees.

The farmer's daughter had frank blue eyes

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);

She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,

As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);

If you try to approach her, away she skips

Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

And I met with a ballad, I can't say where,

Which wholly consisted of lines like these.

Part II

She sat with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

And spake not a word. While a lady speaks

There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze.

She sat, with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);

She gave up mending her father's breeks,

And let the cat roll in her new chemise.

She sat, with her hands 'neath her burning cheeks

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks;

Then she follow'd him out o'er the misty leas.

Her sheep follow'd her, as their tails did them

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),

And this song is consider'd a perfect gem,

And as to the meaning, it's what you please.

Charles S. Calverley.

CIMABUELLA

FAIR-TINTED cheeks, clear eyelids drawn

In crescent curves above the light

Of eyes, whose dim, uncertain dawn

Becomes not day: a forehead white

Beneath long yellow heaps of hair:

She is so strange she must be fair.

Had she sharp, slant-wise wings outspread,

She were an angel; but she stands

With flat dead gold behind her head,

And lilies in her long thin hands:

Her folded mantle, gathered in,

Falls to her feet as it were tin.

Her nose is keen as pointed flame;

Her crimson lips no thing express;

And never dread of saintly blame

Held down her heavy eyelashes:

To guess what she were thinking of

Precludeth any meaner love.

An azure carpet, fringed with gold,

Sprinkled with scarlet spots, I laid

Before her straight, cool feet unrolled;

But she nor sound nor movement made

(Albeit I heard a soft, shy smile,

Printing her neck a moment's while).

And I was shamed through all my mind

For that she spake not, neither kissed,

But stared right past me. Lo! behind

Me stood, in pink and amethyst,

Sword-girt and velvet-doubleted,

A tall, gaunt youth, with frowzy head.

Wide nostrils in the air, dull eyes,

Thick lips that simpered, but, ah me!

I saw, with most forlorn surprise,

He was the Thirteenth Century,

I but the Nineteenth; then despair

Curdled beneath my curling hair.

O Love and Fate! How could she choose

My rounded outlines, broader brain,

And my resuscitated Muse?

Some tears she shed, but whether pain

Or joy in him unlocked their source,

I could not fathom which, of course.

But I from missals quaintly bound,

With cither and with clavichord,

Will sing her songs of sovran sound:

Belike her pity will afford

Such fain return as suits a saint

So sweetly done in verse and paint.

Bayard Taylor.

THE POSTER GIRL

THE blessed Poster girl leaned out

From a pinky-purple heaven.

One eye was red and one was green;

Her bang was cut uneven;

She had three fingers on her hand,

And the hairs on her head were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,

No sunflowers did adorn,

But a heavy Turkish portiÈre

Was very neatly worn;

And the hat that lay along her back

Was yellow, like canned corn.

It was a kind of wobbly wave

That she was standing on,

And high aloft she flung a scarf

That must have weighed a ton;

And she was rather tall—at least

She reached up to the sun.

She curved and writhed, and then she said

Less green of speech than blue:

"Perhaps I am absurd—perhaps

I don't appeal to you;

But my artistic worth depends

Upon the point of view."

I saw her smile, although her eyes

Were only smudgy smears;

And then she swished her swirling arms,

And wagged her gorgeous ears.

She sobbed a blue-and-green-checked sob,

And wept some purple tears.

Carolyn Wells.

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