LIGHT VERSE.*

LIGHT verse may be described as the millinery of literature. Its most characteristic qualities are precisely those of a lady's hat: it is charming, gay, graceful, and it does not last. It is ephemeral by its very nature, for its appeal is merely to the superficies of the mind; and if it were to strike deeper, it could be no longer light. No doubt the very greatest masters of this form of writing—Horace, Prior, and Voltaire—have succeeded in investing their airiest banter with immortality, lifting, by the magic of art, a passing jest or a stray reflection into the realm of poetry. But these are rare exceptions, and as a rule the best writers of light verse can hardly hope to be read beyond their own generation. The ware they deal in is too brittle to withstand "the wreckful siege of battering days." Nor is it only their matter that falls out of date ; their manner, too, once so smart and elegant, loses its freshness and grows unfashionable. It is easy enough to trace in the volumes before us some of the prin- cipal changes in the fashions of light verse during the last 'half-century. The collection of Poems from "Punch" edited by Sir Francis Burnand has been drawn almost entirely from verses published in that periodical during the first twenty-five years of its existence '(1841-65), years which bridge the gulf between the latest work of Hood and the earliest contribu- tions of Sir Francis Burnand himself. The poems vary greatly both in quality and in subject-matter, and a large number of them are intensely serious. Among these the best known is the "Song of the Shirt," which, published in the Christmas number of 1843, has, as Sir Francis Burnand says in his interesting, introduction, "achieved immortality"; but several others of the serious poems deserve notice, particularly the singularly bloodthirsty verses published at the close of • (1) Poems from "Punch," 1841.1884. With Introduction by Sir Francis Burnand. London: George G. Harrap and Co. [5a. net.]—(2) Rchoes from the " Oxford Magazine": being Reprints of Seven Years. Printed from the Second (1890) Edition. London: Henry Frowde. [2s. 6d. net.]—(3) Salvage. By Owen Seaman. London : A. Constable and Co. Ds. ad. net. J—(4) The Odes 'of Horace: Metrical Translations of Various Authors, Selected by S. A. Courtauld. London: Bickers and Son. [Sa. 6d. act.]

the Indian Mutiny, throwing a curions light upon the state of English feeling at the time, and some vigorous lines by Tennyson aimed at Bulwer Lytton, in which "the petty fools of rhyme" are described, in truly Tennysonian phrase,

as those who

"cannot hear The sullen Loth.) rolling doom

On them and theirs, and all things here."

Thackeray's song on "The Mahogany Tree" stands midway between sport and earnest, and contains some passages of great charm and beauty :-

"lore let its sport, Boys, as we sit ; Laughter and wit Flashing so free. Life is but short— When we are gone, Let them sing on, Round the old tree."

Of the purely comic poems, the earliest in the collection bear unmistakable traces of the dominating influence of Hood,— an influence which has long since disappeared. Who now would write a punning "Epitaph on a Candle" containing such lines as these ?—

" If e'er you said 'Go out, I pray,' Ho much ill nature showed; On such occasions he would say, ' Vy, if I do, I'm blow'd.'" That kind of writing is very pretty and very neat; but it as completely out of fashion to-day as a pork-pie hat or a poke- bonnet. A little later, humours of another description make their appearance,—the humours of low life. We have a monologue by "Mrs. Darden" on "them nasty good-for- nothing flies," we have endless descriptions of the after-dinner dreams of Alderman Blogge. Perhaps, on the whole, this phase of humorous poetry is the one which a judicious reader will regret least. But besides these changes in taste, it is easy to perceive an equally marked change in the technical qualities of the verse; and here there can be no doubt what-

ever that the change has been in the right direction. Here and there among these early poems from Punch one comes across instances of grossly defective workmanship,—lines padded out to the right number of syllables by an aimless interjection or a supererogatory "does" or "did," defective rhymes, artificial inversions, and clumsy constructions devised for the sake of a rhyme. "Oh ! the pleasure, oh I the treat," exclaimed Mr. Punch in his Christmas Carol, 1846,

"To behold the joints of moat— With a concourse whilst wo stop,

Gazing at each butcher's shop."

It is impossible to imagine Mr. Punch using such slovenly and pointless language as that in 1909.

A striking contrast with the careless and somewhat heavy humour of sixty years since is to be found in the little volume of Echoes from the " Oxford Magazine" lately reprinted in the "Oxford Library of Prose and Poetry." The contents of the book originally appeared during the "eighties," when a group

of particularly brilliant young writers—among whom were Mr. A. D. Godley and Mr. Quiller-Couch—were making their debut in literature. The merit of their work lies almost entirely in its high spirits; it would be impossible to find a book of verses more obviously and delightfully youthful. And, as the young human animal still has something of the ape about him, it is only natural that this little collection Should be largely made up of parodies. It is curious to com- pare these light-hearted, preposterous, and amazingly clever imitations with the few lumbering attempts in the same direction which appear in the Poems from "Punch." The art of parody seems to have lain dormant in England between the days of the Rejected Addresses and the days of Calverley, "J. K. S.," and the Oxford Magazine. Among the multitude of excellent mimicries in the present volume, the following passage by " Q " perhaps comes nearest to perfection :— " Here glows the lamp,

And tea-spoons clatter to the cosy hum Of scientific circles. Here resounds The football-field with its discordant train, The crowd that cheers but not discriminates, As ever into touch the ball returns And shrieks the whistle, while the game proceeds With fine irregularity, well worth The paltry shilling."

'Surely one has read these lines somewhere in "The Task." Mr. Owen Seaman's verses represent the Punch of the present day, and hie new volume, Salvage, as he modestly calls it, well sustains the reputation for fine craftsmanship and sober wit which has long been his. The spirit of his work is not that of youth, but of maturity. His style is extra- ordinarily easy, and its finish is so complete that a careless reader might pass it by unnoticed ; never was art used more deliberately and more successfully in order to conceal itself. Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Seaman relies for the majority of his effects neither upon puns nor parodies ; his efforts are concentrated upon the elaboration and perfection of exceed- ingly difficult rhymes. And his rhymes are not only always faultless, they are always absolutely natural, so that one feels when one reads them that they are, after all, however curious and however unexpected, the only means that could have been employed to express the thought. There is never the slightest strain or hesitation, and the verse proceeds like a tight-rope dancer, hovering in perfect safety over the edge of destruction, and reaching its triumphant conclusion without a qualm. Mr. Seaman, however, is something more than a highly ingenious technician ; be is a satirist, lightly touching upon a great variety of social topics,—marriage, the English summer, obesity, "arms and the woman," "the slump in poets," "le monde oh Von s'affiche," and a score or so more. The satire, keen as it is, seems now and then a trifle hampered by the extreme artificiality of its medium ; even Mr. Seaman, one feels, though he is always saying good things as it is, might say things that are even better if he had a little more elbow-room in his verse. What poet can put out his whole strength in satire who is obliged (or who obliges himself) to be perpetually thinking of how to bring in natural and perfect rhymes to Taormina, Gilead, and jeroboam? The thing is impossible.

It is always pleasant, after an excursion among modern writers, to turn back to the work of one of the great familiar masters, and Mr. Courtauld's edition of The Odes of Horace, accompanied by English metrical translations, provides an excellent opportunity to English readers for renewing acquaintance with a master who is, so far as light verse is concerned, the greatest and the most familiar of all. Mr. Courtauld gives evidence throughout his edition of wide reading and a discriminating taste. His selection of translations is remarkable for its catholicity, and lovers of our Elizabethan poets will be delighted to find among his pages several charming and little-known examples of their work.