Lyra Frivola | Page 3

proper Pigeonhole--
And thank
your Stars that there's an End of it!
LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND
When we're daily called to arms by continual alarms,
And the
journalist unceasingly dilates
On the agitating fact that we're soon to
be attacked
By the Germans, or the Russians, or the States:
When
the papers all are swelling with a patriotic rage,
And are hurling a
defiance or a threat,
Then I cool my martial ardour with the pacifying
page
Of the Oxford University Gazette.
When I hanker for a statement that is practical and dry
(Being sated
with sensation in excess,
With the vespertinal rumour and the
matutinal lie
Which adorn the lucubrations of the Press),
Then I
turn me to the columns where there's nothing to attract, Or the interest
to waken and to whet,
And I revel in a banquet of unmitigated fact

In the Oxford University Gazette.
When the Laureate obedient to an editor's decree
Puts his verses in
the columns of the Times;
When the endless minor poet in an endless
minor key
Gives the public his unnecessary rhymes,
When you're
weary of the poems which they constantly compose, And endeavour
their existence to forget,
You may seek and find repose in the
satisfying prose
Of the Oxford University Gazette.
In that soporific journal you may stupefy the mind
With the influence
narcotic which it draws
From the Latest Information about
Scholarships Combined
Or the contemplated changes in a clause:


Place me somewhere that is far from the Standard_ and the _Star,
From the fever and the literary fret,--
And the harassed spirit's balm
be the academic calm
Of the Oxford University Gazette!
THE PARADISE OF LECTURERS
When you might be a name for the world to acclaim,
and when Opulence dawns on the view,
Why slave like a Turk at
Collegiate work
for a wholly inadequate screw?
Why grind at the trade--insufficiently
paid--of
instructing for Mods and for Greats,
When fortunes immense are
diurnally made
by a lecturing tour in the States?
Do you know that in scores they will pay at the doors--these
millions in darkness who grope--
For a glimpse of Mark Twain or a
word from Hall Caine
or a reading from Anthony Hope?
We are ignorant here of the
glorious career
which conspicuous talent awaits:
Not a master of style but is making
his pile
by the lectures he gives in the States!
With amazement I hear of the chances they
lose--of the simply incredible sums
Which a Barrie might have (if he
did not refuse)
for reciting A Window in Thrums:
Of the prospects of gain which are

offered
in vain as a sop to the Laureate's pride:
Of the price which I learn Mr
Bradshaw
might earn by declaiming his excellent Guide.
Columbia! desist from soliciting those who
your bribes and petitions contemn:
Though plutocrats scorn the
rewards you
propose, there are others superior to them:
Why burden the proud
with superfluous
pelf, who wealth in abundance possess,
When indigent Worth (I
allude to myself)
would go for substantially less?
For Europe, I know, to oblivion may doom
the fruits of my talented brain,
But they're perfectly sure of creating a
boom
in the wilds of Kentucky and Maine:
They'll appreciate there my
illustrious work
on the way to make Pindar to scan,
And Culture will hum in the State
of New York
when I read it my essay on 'An! [1]
I've a scheme, which is this:--I will start
for the West as a Limited Lecturing Co.,
And the public invite in the
same to invest

to the tune of a million or so:
They will all be recouped for initial
expense
by receiving their share of the "gates,"
Which I venture to think will
be truly
immense when I lecture on Prose in the States.
Thus Merit will not be permitted to rot--as
it does--on Obscurity's shelf:
Thus the national hoard shall with profit
be
stored (with a trifle of course for myself):
For lectures are dear in that
fortunate
sphere, and are paid for at fabulous rates,--
All the gold of Klondike
isn't anything like
to the sums that are made in the States!
[1. Transcriber's note: In the original book, the two characters
preceding the exclamation mark are the Greek "Alpha" and "nu". They
appear to be preceded by the Greek rough-breathing diacritical, making
the three characters together rhyme with "Maine", two lines earlier.]
A DIALOGUE ON ETHICS
Said the Isis to the Cherwell in a tone of indignation,
"With a blush of
conscious virtue your enormities I see: And I wish that a reversal of the
laws of gravitation
Would prevent your vicious current from
contaminating me! With your hedonists who grovel on a cushion with a
novel
(Which is sure to sap the morals and the intellect to stunt), And
the spectacle nefarious of your idle, gay Lotharios
Who pursue a mild
flirtation in a misdirected punt!"
Said the Cherwell to the Isis, "You may talk about my vices-- But of all

the sights of sorrow since the universe began, Just commend me to the
patience that can