Culture in the Slums
(Inscribed to an Intense Poet.)
I. Rondeau
“O crikey, Bill!” she ses to me, she ses.
“Look sharp,” ses she, “with them there sossiges.
Yea! sharp with them there bags of mysteree!
For lo!” she ses, “for lo! old pal,” ses she,
“I’m blooming peckish, neither more nor less.”
Was it not prime—I leave you all to guess
How prime!——to have a jude in love’s distress
Come spooning round, and murmuring balmilee,
“O crikey, Bill!”
For in such rorty wise doth Love express
His blooming views, and asks for your address,
And makes it right, and does the gay and free.
I kissed her—I did so! And her and me
Was pals. And if that ain’t good business,
O crikey, Bill!
II. Villanelle
Now ain’t they utterly too-too
(She ses, my Missus mine,11 ses she),
Them flymy little bits of Blue.
Joe, just you kool ’em-nice and skew
Upon our old meogginee,
Now ain’t they utterly too-too?
They’re better than a pot’n’ a screw,
They’re equal to a Sunday spree,
Them flymy little bits of Blue!
Suppose I put ’em up the flue,
And booze the profits, Joe? Not me.
Now ain’t they utterly too-too?
I do the ’Igh Art fake, I do.
Joe, I’m consummate; and I see
Them flymy little bits of Blue.
Which, Joe, is why I ses te you—
Æsthetic-like, and limp, and free—
Now ain’t they utterly too-too,
Them flymy little bits of Blue?
III. Ballade
I often does a quiet read
At Booty Shelly’s12 poetry;
I thinks that Swinburne at a screed
Is really almost too-too fly;
At Signor Vagna’s13 harmony
I likes a merry little flutter;
I’ve had at Pater many a shy;
In fact, my form’s the Bloomin’ Utter.
My mark’s a tidy little feed,
And ’Enery Irving’s gallery,
To see old ‘Amlick do a bleed,
And Ellen Terry on the die,
Or Franky’s ghostes at hi-spy,14
And parties carried on a shutter.15
Them vulgar Coupeaus is my eye!
In fact, my form’s the Bloomin’ Utter.
The Grosvenor’s nuts-it is, indeed!
I goes for ‘Olman ’Unt like pie.
It’s equal to a friendly lead
To see B. Jones’s judes go by.
Stanhope he makes me fit to cry.
Whistler he makes me melt like butter.
Strudwick he makes me flash my cly—
In fact, my form’s the Bloomin’ Utter.
Envoy.
I’m on for any Art that’s ’Igh;
I talks as quite as I can splutter;
I keeps a Dado on the sly;
In fact, my form’s the Bloomin’ Utter!
W. E. Henley.
Notes
11 An adaptation of “Madonna mia.”
12 Probably Botticelli.
13 Wagner (?)
14 This seems to be a reference to The Corsican Brothers.
15 Richard III. (?)