Lyra Frivola

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Title: Lyra Frivola
Author: A. D. Godley
Release Date: March 2, 2006 [EBook #17898]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LYRA
FRIVOLA ***
Produced by Al Haines
LYRA FRIVOLA
BY
0. D. GODLEY
AUTHOR OF "VERSES TO ORDER."
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET, W.C.
LONDON
1900

Second Edition
Most of the pieces in this book have appeared in the _St James's
Gazette_, the Oxford Magazine_, or the _National Observer. I have to
thank the Proprietors of these papers for permission to republish.
0. D. G.
CONTENTS
AFTER HORACE
THE JOURNALIST ABROAD
VERNAL
VERSES
PENSÉES DE NOEL
AD LECTIONEM SUAM

RUBÁIYYÁT OF MODERATIONS
LINES TO AN OLD
FRIEND
THE PARADISE OF LECTURERS
A DIALOGUE
ON ETHICS
PEDAGOGY
SONG FOR THE NAVY LEAGUE

A DREAM
THE SCHOOL of AGRICULTURE
THE LAST
STRAW
THE 1713 AGAINST NEWNHAM
QUADRIVIAD, ll.
1-51
MUSICAL DEGREES
QUIETA MOVERE

GRAECULUS ESURIENS
THE ROAD TO RENOWN

L'AFFAIRE (CHAPTER ONE)
UNSELFISH DEVOTION

THE ARREST
"THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN"
THE
PATRIOT'S "POME"
MR MORLEY'S APOLOGY

HONESTY REWARDED
THE END OF IT
A NEW
DEPARTURE
MULLIGAN ON THE AUSTRIAN
PARLIAMENT
BROKEN VOWS
THE TRUE REMEDY

UNITED IRELAND
JUSTICE FOR PRIVATE MULVANEY
AFTER HORACE
What asks the Bard? He prays for nought
But what the truly virtuous
crave:
That is, the things he plainly ought
To have.
'Tis not for wealth, with all the shocks
That vex distracted
millionaires,

Plagued by their fluctuating stocks

And shares:
While plutocrats their millions new
Expend upon each costly whim,

A great deal less than theirs will do
For him;
The simple incomes of the poor
His meek poetic soul content:
Say,
L30,000 at four
Per cent.!
His taste in residence is plain:
No palaces his heart rejoice:
A
cottage in a lane (Park Lane
For choice)--
Here be his days in quiet spent:
Here let him meditate the Muse:

Baronial Halls were only meant
For Jews,
And lands that stretch with endless span
From east to west, from
south to north,
Are often much more trouble than
They're worth!
Let epicures who eat too much
Become uncomfortably stout:
Let
gourmets feel th' approaching touch
Of gout,--
The Bard subsists on simpler food:
A dinner, not severely plain,
A
pint or so of really good
Champagne--
Grant him but these, no care he'll take
Though Laureates bask in

Fortune's smile,
Though Kiplings and Corellis make
Their pile:
Contented with a scantier dole
His humble Muse serenely jogs,

Remote from scenes where authors roll
Their logs:
Far from the madding crowd she lurks,
And really cares no single jot

Whether the public read her works
Or not!
THE JOURNALIST ABROAD
When Parson, Doctor, Don,--
In short, when all the nation
Goes
gaily off upon
Its annual vacation,
Their cares professional
No
more avail to bind them:
They go at Pleasure's call
And leave their
trades behind them.
Like them, departs afar
From England's fogs and vapours
The
literary star,
The writer for the papers:
But not, like them, at home

Leaves he his calling's fetters:
Nought can release him from
The
tyranny of Letters!
When classic scenes amid
For rest and peace he hankers,
Amari
aliquid
His joys aesthetic cankers:
Whate'er he sees, he knows
He
has to write upon it
A paragraph of prose
Or possibly a sonnet:
By mountain lakelets blue,
'Mid wild romantic heath, he's
A martyr
always to
Scribendi cacoethes:
The Naiad-haunted stream
Or
lonely mountain-top he
Considers as a theme
Available for "copy."
If on the sunlit main
With ardour rapt he gazes,
He's torturing his
brain
For neat pictorial phrases:
When in a ship or boat
He

navigates the briny
(And here 'tis his to quote
Examples set by
Heine)
While fellow-passengers
Lie stretched in mere prostration,
He duly
registers
Each horrible sensation--
He notes his qualms with care,

And bids the public know 'em
In "Thoughts on Mal de Mer,"
Or
"Nausea: a Poem."

Such is his earthly lot:
Nor is it wholly certain
If Death for him or
not
Rings down the final curtain,
Or if, when hence he's fled
To
worlds or worse or better,
He'll send per Mr St--d
A crisp
descriptive letter!
VERNAL VERSES
When early worms began to crawl, and early birds to sing, And frost,
and mud, and snow, and rain proclaimed the jocund spring, Its
all-pervading influence the Poet's soul obeyed--
He made a song to
greet the Spring, and this is what he made:--
They sadly lacked enlightenment, our ancestors of old,
Who used to
suffer simply from an ordinary cold:
But we, of Science' mysteries
less ignorant by far,
Have nothing less distinguished than a Bronchial
Catarrh!
O when your head's a lump of lead and nought can do but sneeze:
Whene'er in turn you freeze and burn, and then you burn and freeze:--
It does not mean you're going to die, although you think you are--
These are the primal symptoms of a Bronchial Catarrh.
And when you've taken drugs and pills, and stayed indoors a week, Yet
still your chest with pain opprest will hardly let you speak: