 | The Collected Poems of T. E. Brown |  |
PRELUDE
First comes Tom Baynes among these sorted quills,
In asynartete octosyllables.
Methinks you see the “fo'c's'le” squat, the squirt
Nicotian, various interval of shirt,
Enlarged, contract—keen swordsman, cut-and-thrust:
Old salt, old rip, old friend, Tom Baynes comes fust.
In asynartete octosyllables.
Methinks you see the “fo'c's'le” squat, the squirt
Nicotian, various interval of shirt,
Enlarged, contract—keen swordsman, cut-and-thrust:
Old salt, old rip, old friend, Tom Baynes comes fust.
Succeeds our Curate, innocent and good,
The growth of Oxford in her sanest mood;
Dame Nature's child, though bred among the Stoics,
And, if he gush, he gushes in heroics.
Forgive the youth if sometimes he relax
In extra gush of pseudo-dochmiacs.
The growth of Oxford in her sanest mood;
Dame Nature's child, though bred among the Stoics,
And, if he gush, he gushes in heroics.
Forgive the youth if sometimes he relax
In extra gush of pseudo-dochmiacs.
Last hear our Pazon, reverend and meek;
In unadornèd verse I make him speak,
As is most fit. To him Tom Baynes' rude style
Were “simply barbarous”—I see him smile
His smile—“Poor Tom has thoughts beyond his station,
But language! sir—unfit for publication.”
The Curate's rhymes he haply thinks audacious,
Emphatic, overwrought. “But 'twere ungracious
Of me to criticise a gentleman
That is so kind and clever.” There again
You have our Pazon. So he says his say,
And all my dreams of Manxland fade away.
In unadornèd verse I make him speak,
As is most fit. To him Tom Baynes' rude style
Were “simply barbarous”—I see him smile
His smile—“Poor Tom has thoughts beyond his station,
But language! sir—unfit for publication.”
The Curate's rhymes he haply thinks audacious,
Emphatic, overwrought. “But 'twere ungracious
Of me to criticise a gentleman
That is so kind and clever.” There again
You have our Pazon. So he says his say,
And all my dreams of Manxland fade away.
1889.
| The Collected Poems of T. E. Brown | |