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A Satire Anthology
Автор
Год написания книги
2017
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Like “demme”?
Or kick the stranger then and there,
Or challenge him to formal battle?
Or spring upon the midnight air
His rattle?
Certainly not! He knew too much;
He knew that, as a bud is blighted,
Your burglar’s honour, at a touch,
Feels slighted.
He saw, as men of taste would see,
That others’ pride should be respected;
Some people cannot bear to be
Detected.
Therefore his rising wrath he curbed,
Gave him a smile as warm as may be,
Thanked him because he’d not disturbed
The baby;
Apologized for fear his guest
Might deem him casual or surly
For having rudely gone to bed
So early.
The night was still not very old,
And, short as was the invitation,
Would he not stay and share a cold
Collation?
So was his tact not found at fault;
So was he spared, by tasteful flattery,
What might have ended in assault
Or battery.
Soft language is the best – how true!
This doctrine, which I here rehearse, ’ll
Apply to nations: it is u-
-niversal!
Thus England should not take offence
When from behind they jump upon her;
She must not hurt their lively sense
Of honour.
For plain opinions, put in speech,
Might lead to blows, which might be bloody,
A lesson which the press should teach
And study!
Owen Seaman.
JOHN JENKINS
JOHN JENKINS, in an evil day, felt suddenly inclined
To perpetrate a novel of an unobtrusive kind;
It held no “Strange Adventures” or “Mysterious Events,”
To terrify its readers with exciting accidents.
“I have never,” said John Jenkins, “in my uneventful life,
Taken part in revolutions or in sanguinary strife;
My knowledge of historic days is lamentably scant,
But the present will afford me the material I want.”
In fact, the rash resolve with which this foolish man set out,
Was just to deal with matters that he really knew about.
He studied all his characters with sympathy sincere;
He wrote, rewrote, and laboured at his chapters for a year;
He found a trusting publisher – one wonders much at that —
For this, his first production, fell quite absolutely flat.
The critics were benign indeed: “A harmless little tale,”
Was what they mostly called it. “While the reader cannot fail,”
Another wrote, “to credit it with fluency and grace,
Its fault is that it’s really so extremely commonplace.”
A third condemned it roundly as “A simple, shameless sham”
(Finding that alliteration often does for epigram).
And as John Jenkins wearily perused each fresh review,
He shook his head, and cried, “Oh, this will never, never do!”
Undaunted by catastrophe, John Jenkins tried again,
And wrote his second novel in a very different strain;
In one short month he finished what the critic at a glance
Pronounced a fine example of the latter-day Romance.
His characters now figured in that period sublime
Which, with convenient vagueness, writers call “The Olden Time.”
They said “Oddsbobs,” “Grammercy,” and other phrases sweet,
Extracted from old English as supplied in Wardour Street.
Exciting was their wooing, constant battles did they wage,
And some one murdered some one else on every other page;
Whereat the critics flung their caps, and one and all agreed,
“Hail to the great John Jenkins! This is True Romance indeed!”
And so John Jenkins flourishes, and scribbles wondrous fast
A string of such “romances,” each exactly like the last;
A score of anxious publishers for his assistance seek;
His “Illustrated Interview” you meet with every week.
Nay, more; when any question, difficult and intricate,
Perplexes the intelligence of ministers of State,
Or kick the stranger then and there,
Or challenge him to formal battle?
Or spring upon the midnight air
His rattle?
Certainly not! He knew too much;
He knew that, as a bud is blighted,
Your burglar’s honour, at a touch,
Feels slighted.
He saw, as men of taste would see,
That others’ pride should be respected;
Some people cannot bear to be
Detected.
Therefore his rising wrath he curbed,
Gave him a smile as warm as may be,
Thanked him because he’d not disturbed
The baby;
Apologized for fear his guest
Might deem him casual or surly
For having rudely gone to bed
So early.
The night was still not very old,
And, short as was the invitation,
Would he not stay and share a cold
Collation?
So was his tact not found at fault;
So was he spared, by tasteful flattery,
What might have ended in assault
Or battery.
Soft language is the best – how true!
This doctrine, which I here rehearse, ’ll
Apply to nations: it is u-
-niversal!
Thus England should not take offence
When from behind they jump upon her;
She must not hurt their lively sense
Of honour.
For plain opinions, put in speech,
Might lead to blows, which might be bloody,
A lesson which the press should teach
And study!
Owen Seaman.
JOHN JENKINS
JOHN JENKINS, in an evil day, felt suddenly inclined
To perpetrate a novel of an unobtrusive kind;
It held no “Strange Adventures” or “Mysterious Events,”
To terrify its readers with exciting accidents.
“I have never,” said John Jenkins, “in my uneventful life,
Taken part in revolutions or in sanguinary strife;
My knowledge of historic days is lamentably scant,
But the present will afford me the material I want.”
In fact, the rash resolve with which this foolish man set out,
Was just to deal with matters that he really knew about.
He studied all his characters with sympathy sincere;
He wrote, rewrote, and laboured at his chapters for a year;
He found a trusting publisher – one wonders much at that —
For this, his first production, fell quite absolutely flat.
The critics were benign indeed: “A harmless little tale,”
Was what they mostly called it. “While the reader cannot fail,”
Another wrote, “to credit it with fluency and grace,
Its fault is that it’s really so extremely commonplace.”
A third condemned it roundly as “A simple, shameless sham”
(Finding that alliteration often does for epigram).
And as John Jenkins wearily perused each fresh review,
He shook his head, and cried, “Oh, this will never, never do!”
Undaunted by catastrophe, John Jenkins tried again,
And wrote his second novel in a very different strain;
In one short month he finished what the critic at a glance
Pronounced a fine example of the latter-day Romance.
His characters now figured in that period sublime
Which, with convenient vagueness, writers call “The Olden Time.”
They said “Oddsbobs,” “Grammercy,” and other phrases sweet,
Extracted from old English as supplied in Wardour Street.
Exciting was their wooing, constant battles did they wage,
And some one murdered some one else on every other page;
Whereat the critics flung their caps, and one and all agreed,
“Hail to the great John Jenkins! This is True Romance indeed!”
And so John Jenkins flourishes, and scribbles wondrous fast
A string of such “romances,” each exactly like the last;
A score of anxious publishers for his assistance seek;
His “Illustrated Interview” you meet with every week.
Nay, more; when any question, difficult and intricate,
Perplexes the intelligence of ministers of State,
Другие электронные книги автора Carolyn Wells
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