Now what are the rhymes to _if_? Looking up my _Rhyming Dictionary_ I
see they are:--
cliff hieroglyph hippogriff
skiff sniff stiff tiff whiff
Of these one may reject _hippogriff_ at once, as it is in the wrong
metre. _Hieroglyph_ is attractive, and we might do worse than:--
There was a young man who said “If
One murdered a hieroglyph----”
Having, however, no very clear idea of the nature of a hieroglyph
I am afraid that this will also join the long list of unfinished
masterpieces. Personally I should incline to something of this kind:--
There was a young man who said “If
I threw myself over a cliff
I do not believe
_One_ person would grieve----”
Now the last line is going to be very difficult. The tragic loneliness,
the utter disillusion of this young man is so vividly outlined in the
first part of the poem that to avoid an anticlimax a really powerful
last line is required. _But there are no powerful rhymes._ A serious
poet, of course, could finish up with _death_ or _faith_, or some
powerful word like that. But we are limited to _skiff_, _sniff_, _tiff_
and _whiff_. And what can you do with those? Students, I hope, will see
what they can do. My own tentative solution is printed, by arrangement
with the Publisher, on another page (87). I do not pretend that it is
perfect; in fact it seems to me to strike rather a vulgar note. At the
same time it is copyright, and must not be set to music in the U.S.A.
I have left little time for comic poetry other than Limericks, but most
of the above profound observations are equally applicable to both,
except that in the case of the former it is usual to think of the
_last_ line first. Having done that you think of some good rhymes to
the last line and hang them up in mid-air, so to speak. Then you think
of something to say which will fit on to those rhymes. It is just like
Limericks, only you start at the other end; indeed it is much easier
than Limericks, though, I am glad to say, nobody believes this. If they
did it would be even harder to get money out of Editors than it is
already.
We will now write a comic poem about Spring Cleaning. We will have
verses of six lines, five ten-syllable lines and one six-syllable. As
the last line for the first verse I suggest
Where have they put my hat?
We now require two rhymes to _hat_. In the present context _flat_ will
obviously be one, and _cat_ or _drat_ will be another. Our resources at
present are therefore as follows:--
Line 1-- ----
“ 2-- ... flat.
“ 3-- ----
“ 4-- ... cat or drat.
“ 5-- ----
“ 6-- Where have they put my hat?
As for the blank lines, _wife_ is certain to come in sooner or later,
and we had better put that down, supported by _life_ (“What a life!”),
and _knife_ or _strife_. There are no other rhymes, except _rife_,
which is a useless word.