Was it not prime-I leave you all to guess For in such rorty wise doth Love express Now ain't they utterly too-too (She ses, my Missus mine, ses she), Them flymy little bits of Blue. Joe, just you kool 'em-nice and skew Upon our old meogginee, Now ain't they utterly too-too? They're better than a pot'n' a screw, They're equal to a Sunday spree, Them flymy little bits of Blue! Suppose I put 'em up the flue, And booze the profits, Joe? Not me. Now ain't they utterly too-too? I do the 'Igh Art fake, I do. Joe, I'm consummate; and I see Them flymy little bits of Blue. Which, Joe, is why I ses ter you Esthetic-like, and limp, and free Now ain't they utterly too-too, William Ernest Henley [1849-1903] The Poets at Tea 1953 THE POETS AT TEA I. (MACAULAY) POUR, varlet, pour the water, We shall not drink from amber, Grown sweet 'neath tropic fires, The pasture-lands more fragrance yield; The teapot of her sires! II. (TENNYSON) I think that I am drawing to an end: III. (SWINBURNE) As the sin that was sweet in the sinning Is foul in the ending thereof, As the heat of the summer's beginning O purity, painful and pleading! O hear us, our handmaid unheeding, And take it away! And hums a cheerful song. I sing the saucer and the cup; And do not make it strong. V.-(BROWNING) Tut! Bah! We take as another case Pass 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? VI. (WORDSWORTH) Come, little cottage girl, you seem To want my cup of tea; And will you take a little cream? She had a rustic, woodland grin, A little drop of milk." "Why, what put milk into your head? And five times to the child I said, "You call me pig-head," she replied; I called that milk "--she blushed with pride— The Poets at Tea 1955 VII.-(POE) 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 endeavor 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, VIII.—(ROSSETTI) The lilies lie in my lady's bower, (O weary mother, drive the cows to roost), She took the porcelain in her hand IX. (BURNS) Weel, gin ye speir, I'm no inclined, For, gin I tak the first, I'm fou, X. (WALT WHITMAN) 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-colored hair you've got. I don't want to be personal. All right, then, you needn't. You're a stale-cadaver. Allons, from all bat-eyed formulas. Two voices are there: one is of the deep; It learns the storm cloud's thunderous melody, And one is of an old half-witted sheep Which bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep: Quite unacquainted with the A, B, C, Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst. James Kenneth Stephen (1859-1892] |