WHO SENT ME A PIECE OF GOOD NEWS
IN A RHYMED LETTER
_Wittering, April_ 1915
When all the world was very good
(So says the nursery rhyme)
The fairy Fays and Mays who stood
As godmothers, from time to time,
Would give their virtuous picaninnies
A golden goblet filled with guineas.
That was the golden age: and nurse
Declared that ours grew worse and worse
("Don't bite the spoon, Miss Leslie!")
Yet I believe that fairies still
Can fill a cup, and over-fill,--
At any rate in Chelsea.
Telling good news is reckoned kind
(Except when Germans tell it,)
To wrap it in a pleasant rind
Of song was thought angelic
By the good shepherds, and by me
A piece of sweet _diablerie._
One cavil: though it ill becomes
One who has in his time
Bedragged the depths and skimmed the scums
To catch a dubious rhyme,
To scold a poetess who fell
And, though she knew she shouldn't,
Wrote down a name that rhymed with "well"
Instead of one that wouldn't,
Yet, frankly, tuneful, erring sister,
Can one be musical to "Mister"?
A monosyllable, I confess,
Is what the Muse prefers:
She cut a queen's name down to Bess
And yours is worse than hers:
Meanwhile it takes a better poet
Than I to deal with Mrs. Jowitt.
_TO_ GERALD SHOVE
I like to let my fancy rove
O'er all the charms of Mister Shoave.
But oh! how very much above
Such obvious charms are those of Shuv.
Oh Shuv most intimate! Oh Shoave
More pompous-fine! Yet interwove,
How complex-sweet and meet for love
The compound name of Gerald Shuv.
Oh Gerald dear! Oh Shuv! Oh Shoave!
My late-found bliss, my treasure-trove;
My poor heart yearns to counter-prove
Those double facets that me move
So strangely; therefore, deign t'approve
This syncretism--Gerald Shoove.
1912.