Lyra Frivola | Page 8

mortalia tangent.
me sacer Aegidius
Musarum fana colentem
aegide defendit, perque ignea tela, per hostes

incolumem vexitque tuens rursusque revexit.
MUSICAL DEGREES
Too oft there grows a painful thorn the floweret's stalk upon: Behind
each cupboard's gilded doors there lurks a Skeleton: The crumpled
roseleaf mocks repose, beneath the bed of down: In proof of which
attend the tale of Bach Beethoven Brown.

Beethoven Brown could play and sing before he learnt to crawl: Piano,
bones, or ophicleide--he played upon them all!
Some talk of
Paderewski, or of Dr Joachim--
These artists meritorious are, but
can't compare with him.
No faults or errors technical his Symphonies deface:
He calculates in
counterpoint, he thinks in thoroughbass: Composers of
celebrity--musicians of renown--
Confess that they're inferior far to
Bach Beethoven Brown.
As conquerors, their triumphs won, new fields before them see, So Mr
Brown resolved to have a Musical Degree:
Some say that it the title
was and others say the gown
That captive took the soaring soul of
Bach Beethoven Brown.
But ah! our Statues grovelling command their candidates
To satisfy
examiners in Smalls, and Mods., and Greats,
To learn those verbs
irregular which men of taste abhor,
Before you can a Doctor be or
e'en a Bachelor!
O mores! and O tempora! can pedantry compel
Musicians who write
choruses to construe them as well?
Is this (I ask) the way to deal with
genius great and high? Why fetter it with Latin Prose? and Echo
answers "Why?"
Beethoven Brown is famous still, though ignorant of Greek, He writes
cantatas every month and anthems once a week:
And still in every
capital and each provincial town
Piano organs play the tunes of Bach
Beethoven Brown;
Earls, Viscounts, Dukes, and R-y-lties his music throng to hear:
Already he's a Baronet, and soon he'll be a Peer:
And--thrice a year
this awful news a nation's heart appals, That great Sir Bach Beethoven
Brown is ploughed again in Smalls!
QUIETA MOVERE

"Any leap in the dark is better than standing still."--New Proverb.
Talk not to us of the joys of the Present,
Say not what is is
undoubtedly best:
Never be ours to be merely quiescent--
Anything,
everything rather than rest!
Placid prosperity bores us and vexes:
What if philosophers Latin and
Greek
Say that well-being's a Status and Exis? [1]
Nothing should
please you for more than a week.
Tinkering, doctoring, shifting, deranging,
Urged by a constant satiety
on,
Ever the new for the newer exchanging,
Hazarding ever the
gains we have won--
Only perpetual flux can delight us,
Blown like a billow by winds of
the sea:
Still let us bow to the shrine of St. Vitus--
Vite Sanctissime,
ora pro me!
Pray, that when leaps in the darkness uncaring
End in a fall (as they
probably will),
Mine be the credit for valiantly daring,
Others be
charged with defraying the bill!
[1. Transcriber's note: The word "Exis" was transliterated from the
Greek as follows: Epsilon (with the rough-breathing diacritical), xi, iota,
sigma.]
GRAECULUS ESURIENS
There came a Grecian Admiral to pale Britannia's shore--
In Eighteen
Ninety-eight he came, and anchored off the Nore; An ultimatum he
despatched (I give the text complete),
Addressing it "To Kurio, the
Premier, Downing-street." [1]
"Whereas the sons of Liberty with indignation view
The number of
dependencies which governed are by you--
With Hellas (Freedom's
chosen land) we purpose to unite
Some part of those

dependencies--let's say the Isle of Wight."
"The Isle of Wight!" said Parliament, and shuddered at the word, "Her
Majesty's at Osborne, too--of course, the thing's absurd!" And this
response Lord Salisbury eventually gave:
"Such transfers must
attended be by difficulties grave."
"My orders," said the Admiral, "are positive and flat:
I am not in the
least deterred by obstacles like that:
We're really only acting in the
interests of peace:
Expansion is a nation's law--we've aims sublime in
Greece."
With that Britannia blazed amain with patriotic flames!
They built a
hundred ironclads and launched them in the Thames: They girded on
their fathers' swords, both commoners and peers; They mobilized an
Army Corps, and drilled the Volunteers!
The Labour Party armed itself, invasion's path to bar,
"Truth" and the
"Daily Chronicle" proclaimed a Righteous War; Sir William Harcourt
stumped the towns that sacred fire to fan, And Mr Gladstone every day
sent telegrams from Cannes.
But ere they marched to meet the foe and drench the land with gore,
Outspake that Grecian Admiral--from somewhere near the Nore-- And
"Ere," he said, "hostilities are ordered to commence, Just hear a last
appeal unto your educated sense:--
"You can't intend," he said, said he, "to turn your Maxims on The race
that fought at Salamis, that bled at Marathon!
You can't propose with
brutal force to drive from off your seas The men of Homer's gifted
line--the sons of Socrates!"
Britannia heard the patriot's plea, she checked her murderous plans:
Homer's a name to conjure with, 'mong British artisans:
Her Army
too, profoundly moved by arguments like these,
Said 'e'd be blowed
afore 'e'd fight the sons of Socrates.

They cast away their