In this lecture I propose to explain how comic poetry is written.
Comic poetry, as I think I pointed out in my last lecture, is much
more difficult than serious poetry, because there are all sorts of
rules. In serious poetry there are practically no rules, and what rules
there are may be shattered with impunity as soon as they become at all
inconvenient. Rhyme, for instance. A well-known Irish poet once wrote a
poem which ran like this:--
“Hands, do as you’re bid,
Draw the balloon of the mind
That bellies and sags in the wind
Into its narrow shed.”
This was printed in a serious paper; but if the poet had sent it up
to a humorous paper (as he might well have done) the Editor would
have said, “Do you pronounce it _shid_?” and the poet would have
had no answer. You see, he started out, as serious poets do, with
every intention of organizing a good rhyme for _bid_--or perhaps
for _shed_--but he found this was more difficult than he expected.
And then, no doubt, somebody drove all his cattle on to his
croquet-lawn, or somebody else’s croquet-lawn, and he abandoned the
struggle. I shouldn’t complain of that; what I do complain of is the
_deceitfulness_ of the whole thing. If a man can’t find a better rhyme
than _shed_ for a simple word like _bid_, let him give up the idea of
having a rhyme at all; let him write--
Hands, do as you’re TOLD,
or
Into its narrow HUT (or even HANGAR).
That at least would be an honest confession of failure. But to write
_bid_ and _shed_ is simply a sinister attempt to gain credit for
writing a rhymed poem _without doing it at all_.
Well, that kind of thing is not allowed in comic poetry. When I opened
my well-known military epic, “Riddles of the King,” with the couplet--
Full dress (with decorations) will be worn
When General Officers are shot at dawn.
the Editor wrote cuttingly in the margin, “Do you say _dorn_?”
The correct answer would have been, of course, “Well, as a matter
of fact I do”; but you cannot make answers of that kind to Editors;
they don’t understand it. And that brings you to the real drawback of
comic poetry; it means constant truck with Editors. But I must not be
drawn into a discussion about them. In a special lecture--two special
lectures---- Quite.
The lowest form of comic poetry is, of course, the Limerick; but it is
a mistake to suppose that it is the easiest. It is more difficult to
finish a Limerick than to finish anything in the world. You see, in a
Limerick you cannot begin:--