Lauds and libels

MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS—	PAGE
Piccadilly	9
To “Martin Ross”	11
To Stephen Leacock	14
To “Bartimeus”	16
On Re-reading “Barchester Towers”	18
“Bleak House”	20
Lines on a New History	22
To my Godson	24
The House-Master	27
The Old Matron	29
Constable Jinks	31
’Twas Fifty Years Ago	33
New Men and Old Studies	36
Remunerative Rhymes	39
WAR WORKERS AND OTHERS—
To Mr. Balfour on his Return	43
The Submerged Leader	45
A Ministerial Wail	47
The Flapper	49
The Feminine Factotum	52
To a New Knight	54
The Tenth Muse	56
[vi]LAYS OF THE LARDER—
Sugar	59
Tea Shortage	62
Margarine	65
A Ballad of Eels	67
A Song of Food-Saving	70
A Queue Song	73
The Imperfect Economist	74
The War Pig: a Palinode	75
VARIA—
Bath	79
In Wild Wales	82
The Little River	84
Six Vile Verbs	86
Some More Bad Words	88
To a Modern Muse	90
Ballade of Free Verse	92
The Strife of Tongues	93
“Jong”	95

NOTE

Acknowledgment is due to the Proprietors and Editor of “Punch”
for their courtesy in allowing me to reprint these pieces.

C. L. G.

[7]

MEN, WOMEN, AND BOOKS

[8]

[9]

PICCADILLY

Gay shops, stately palaces, bustle and breeze,

The whirring of wheels and the murmur of trees;

By night or by day, whether noisy or stilly,

Whatever my mood is—I love Piccadilly.

Thus carolled Fred Locker, just sixty years back,

In a year (’57) when the outlook was black,

And even to-day the war-weariest Willie

Recovers his spirits in dear Piccadilly.

We haven’t the belles with their Gainsborough hats,

Or the Regency bucks with their wondrous cravats,

But now that the weather no longer is chilly

There’s much to enchant us in New Piccadilly.

As I sit in my club and partake of my “ration,”

No longer I’m vexed by the follies of fashion;

The dandified Johnnies so precious and silly—

You seek them in vain in the New Piccadilly.

The men are alert and upstanding and fit,

They’ve most of them done or they’re doing their bit;

With the eye of a hawk and the stride of a gillie

They add a new lustre to Old Piccadilly.

And the crippled but gay-hearted heroes in blue

Are a far finer product than wicked “old Q,”

Who ought to have lived in a prison on skilly

Instead of a palace in mid Piccadilly.

[10]

The women are splendid, so quiet and strong,

As with resolute purpose they hurry along—

Excepting the flappers, who chatter as shrilly

As parrots let loose to distract Piccadilly.

Thus I muse as I watch with a reverent eye

The New Generation sweep steadily by,

And judge him an ass or a born Silly Billy

Who’d barter the New for the Old Piccadilly.

[11]

TO “MARTIN ROSS”

(After reading “Irish Memories.”)

Two Irish cousins greet us here

From Bushe “the silver-tongued” descended,

Whose lives for close on thirty year

Were indistinguishably blended;

Scorning the rule that holds for cooks,

They pooled their brains and joined their forces,

And wrote a dozen gorgeous books

On men and women, hounds and horses.

They superseded Handley Cross;

They glorified the “hunting fever”;

They purged their pages of the dross,

While bettering the fun, of Lever;

With many a priceless turn of phrase

They stirred us to Homeric laughter,

When painting Ireland in the days

Before Sinn Fein bewitched and “strafed” her.

With them we watched good Major Yeates

Contending with litigious peasants,

With “hidden hands” within his gates,

With claims for foxes and for pheasants;

We saw Leigh Kelway drop his chin—

That precious English super-tripper—

In shocked amazement drinking in

The lurid narrative of Slipper.

[12]

Philippa’s piercing peacock squeals,

Uttered in moments of expansion;

The grime and splendour of the meals

Of Mrs. Knox and of her mansion;

The secrets of horse-coping lore,

The loves of Sally and of Flurry—

All these delights and hundreds more

Are not forgotten in a hurry.

Yet the same genial pens that freight

Our memories with joyous magic

Gave us the tale of Francie’s fate—

So vulgar, lovable and tragic;

Just to the land that gave them birth

They showed her smiling, sad and sullen,

And turning from the paths of mirth

Probed the dark soul of Charlotte Mullen.

Alas! the tie, so close, so dear,

Two years ago death rent asunder;

Hushed is the voice so gay and clear

Which moved us once to joy and wonder;

Yet, though they chronicle a loss

Whose pang no lapse of time assuages,

The spirit of brave “Martin Ross”

Shines like a star throughout these pages.

Here in her letters may one trace

The generous scorn, the gentle pity,

The easy unaffected grace,

The wisdom that was always witty;

[13]

Here, mirrored in a sister soul,

One sees the comrade, strong yet tender,

Who marched unfaltering to her goal

Through sacrifice and self-surrender.

[14]

TO STEPHEN LEACOCK

(Professor of Political Economy at McGill University, Montreal,and author of “Further Foolishness” and other notable worksof humour.)

The life that is flagrantly double,

Conflicting in conduct and aim,

Is seldom untainted by trouble

And commonly closes in shame;

But no such anxieties pester

Your dual existence, which links

The functions of don and of jester—

High thoughts and high jinks.

Your earliest venture perhaps is

Unique in the rapture intense

Displayed in these riotous Lapses

From all that could savour of sense,

Recalling the “goaks” and the gladness

Of one whom we elders adored—

The methodical midsummer madness

Of Artemus Ward.

With you, O enchanting Canadian,

We laughed till you gave us a stitch

In our sides at the wondrous Arcadian

Exploits of the indolent rich;

We loved your satirical sniping,

And followed, far over “the pond,”

The lure of your whimsical piping

Behind the Beyond.

[15]

In place of the squalor that stretches

Unchanged o’er the realist’s page,

The sunshine that glows in your Sketches

Is potent our griefs to assuage;

And when, on your mettlesome charger,

Full tilt against reason you go,

Your Lunacy’s finer and Larger

Than any I know.

The faults of ephemeral fiction,

Exotic, erotic or smart,

The vice of delirious diction,

The latest excesses of Art—

You flay in felicitous fashion,

With dexterous choice of your tools,

A scourge for unsavoury passion,

A hammer for fools.

And yet, though so freakish and dashing,

You are not the slave of your fun,

For there’s nobody better at lashing

The crimes and the cant of the Hun;

Anyhow, I’d be proud as a peacock

To have it inscribed on my tomb:

“He followed the footsteps of Leacock

In banishing gloom.”

[16]

TO “BARTIMEUS”

(From a grateful Landsman.)

Although the movements of the sea

Have always been a grief to me

And still at times disastrously

Affect my corpus vile,

Sailors of high and low degree

I long have honoured highly.

But now we honour them far more

Than ever in the days of yore

For all they’re doing in the War

To guard and shield and free us;

And this is where the man on shore

Can learn from “Bartimeus.”

For lately, when I couldn’t stick

A “fearless” book which made me sick

And positively long to kick

The author to the ceiling,

By luck I chanced on your Long Trick

Recommend

The Red House Mystery The Piccadilly Novels

The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book Revised Edition, 1890

Barchester Towers

Bleak House