POETIC AMUSEMENTS Lampoons. By Humbert Wolfe. (Berm Bros. 6s. net.)
The Duke of Berwick. By Lord Alfred Douglas. (Seeker. 5s. net.) THOUGH it is popularly supposed that poets are melancholy animals, seekers after solitude and shades, the truth is that they are often more given to laughter than most men. That extra liveliness which makes them able to see more sharply than plain folk and helps them to juggle with words also tends to fill their minds with merry conceits. Even the cloud-enveloped Blake wrote quite funny though not always printable verses, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, his Victorian sobriety notwithstanding, has—though perhaps with cruel
injustice—been credited with the fabrication of some of our best known limericks.
The laughter of poets is inclined to be more mercurial, more irresponsible and more dry than it is jovial. Mercury was an unscrupulous person, fonder of a bright tale than of a perfectly true but less diverting one, 'and his devotees the poets often take after him. Both Mr. Humbert Wolfe and Lord Alfred Douglas wear Mercury's colours on holiday.
In Lampoons Mr. Wolfe contributes a sheaf of unsolicited epitaphs-in-advance on many eminent and well-known men of the day. Some of the epitaphs, like the one on Dean Inge,
will alivady be familiar to readers of this paper, but among them the one on Bloomsbury is easily best :— " Confident that art and brains end with them (and Maynard Keynes) the school- of Bloomsbury lies herd greeting the unknown with a sneer."
Of course this is very cruel and of course it is not quite justified. But, particularly to those who know what " Bloomsbury " means, with its special tone of voice, its argot, its seeming- languid culture masking a positive maelstrom of artistic activity, the poem is quite exquisitely funny. And like all Mr. Wolfe's verse it is dexterously turned. He has an uncanny and brilliant technique, and so much ease of manner that his piquant epigrams sometimes seem the kind of thing that wits loose off impromptu at astonished dinner- tables, though the impromptu were ever so painstakingly rehearsed.
To those who have forgotten or never known the non- sense-rhymes of Lord Alfred Douglas, a book of them collected under the title of The Duke of Berwick will be surprising and very welcome. The author says in his preface that they are not intended for children ; and while it is true that dohs and the clergy will, perhapti," chuckle longest over them "(for dons and the clergy for all their tribulations are blessed with a fine, tickly sense of humour above other men), it is hard to imagine anything the modern child would like to chant better than Lord Alfred's bitter attack on the Rabbit :— " The Rabbit has an evil mind Although he looks so _good and kind. His life is a complete disgrace, 'Although he has so soft a face. I hardly like to let you know How far his wickedness will go. Enough, if this poor rhyme declares His fearful cruelty to hares. Be does his very best to keep These gentle animals from sleep, By joining in with noisy throngs Of rabbits singing ribald songs.
They would love, too, the Gazelle which :-
"gives you fearful pain.
But if you always dress in white The chances are he'll be all right."
Equally joyous are the poems on the anthropomorphic Polar Bear, the Viper ""who has a "very stealthy creep," and the good Weasel who bites your boots WI they fit all right. Parents would perhaps do well to withhold the Ballad of Bishops, but if they do, they themselves will in reading it be pleased by its drawling, amusing nonsense.
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