Hilaire Belloc

Ballade of Hell and Mrs. Roebuck

I'm going out to dine at Gray's

  With Bertie Morden, Charles, and Kit,

And Manderley, who never pays,

 And Jane who wins in spite of it,

 And Algernon who won't admit

The truth about his curious hair

  And teeth that very nearly fit:--

And Mrs. Roebuck will be there.

 

And then tomorrow someone says

  That someone else has made a hit

In one of Mister Twister's plays,

  And off we go to yawn at it;

  And when it's petered out we quit

For number 20, Taunton Square,

  And smoke, and drink, and dance a bit:--

And Mrs. Roebuck will be there.

 

And through each declining phase

  Of emptied effort, jaded wit,

And day by day of London days,

  Obscurely, more obscurely, lit;

  Until the uncertain shadows flit

Announcing to the shuddering air

  A darkening, and the end of it:--

And Mrs. Roebuck will be there.

 

Envoi

 

Prince, on their iron thrones they sit,

  Impassable to our despair,

The dreadful guardians of the pit:--

  And Mrs. Roebuck will be there.

 

-Hilaire Belloc

 

 

Ooh. That awful Mrs. Roebuck. One wonders what she's actually done.

 

Fortunately I'm not often forced into proximity with high society--and this week, when this post appears, least of all. We're off to the Internet-free zone and it's more likely Mrs. Beaver than Mrs. Roebuck. Should we see any species of deer, it will be white-tailed rather than red.

 

I do like Hilaire Belloc's light verse as well as the ballade form. 

 

Pretty off-topic, but thoughts of High Society always remind me of:

 

Rivier-eh and Missour-eh is such a great rhyme. The original Tammy Wynette and George Jones version is pretty good, too, but since I've seen both John Prine and Iris DeMent live...

And while I have the Belloc volume in my hand:

Habitations

Kings live in Palaces, and Pigs in sties,

And Youth in Expectation. Youth is wise.

 

-Hilaire Belloc

 

Poem For A Thursday: Disch

Ballade of the New God

I have decided I'm divine
Caligula and Nero knew
A godliness akin to mine,
But they are strictly hitherto.
They're dead, and what can dead gods do?
I'm here and now. I'm dynamite.
I'd worship me if I were you.
A new religion starts tonight! 

No booze, no pot, no sex, no swine:
I have decreed them all taboo.
My words will be your only wine,
The thought of me your honeydew.
All other thoughts you will eschew.
You'll call yourself a Thomasite
And hymn my praise with loud yahoo.
A new religion starts tonight. 

But (you might think) that's asinine!
I'm just as much a god as you.
You may have built yourself a shrine,
But I won't bend my knee. Who
Asked you to be my god? I do,
Who am, as god, divinely right.
Now you must join my retinue:
A new religion starts tonight. 

All that I have said is true.
I'm god and you're my acolyte.
Surrender's bliss. I envy you.
A new religion starts tonight.

-Tom Disch

Tom Disch is better known as a science fiction writer, but he was also a bravura formal poet. He died, alas, a suicide, in New York in 2008.

That's two ballades in three weeks. It's not always a comic verse form--"Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear?"--but somehow it seems to be one now.

Jennifer at Holds Upon Happiness has Robert Graves this week.

Poem for a Thursday: Marquis

archy, cockroach and vers libre poet

Ballade of the Under Side

the roach that scurries
skips and runs
may read far more than those
that fly
i know what family skeletons
within your closets
swing and dry
not that i ever
play the spy
but as in corners
dim i bide
i can t dodge knowledge
though i try
i see things from
the under side

the lordly ones the
haughty ones
with supercilious
heads held high
the up stage stiff
pretentious guns
miss much that meets
my humbler eye
not that i meddle
perk or pry
but i m too small
to feel great pride
and as the pompous world
goes by
i see things from
the under side

above me wheel
the stars and suns
but humans shut
me from the sky
you see their eyes as pure
as nuns
i see their wayward
feet and sly
i own and own it with
a sigh
my point of view
is somewhat wried
i am a pessimistic
guy
i see things from the
under side

l envoi 

prince ere you pull a bluff
and lie
before you fake
and play the snide
consider whether
archy s nigh
i see things from
the under side

-Don Marquis (writing as Archy)

Archy was a recurring character in the newspaper columns of Don Marquis. His home paper was the New York Evening Sun. Archy made his first appearance on March 26, 1916, and we learn that in a previous life he was a vers libre poet, but when he died he was reincarnated as a cockroach, for his sins. As a cockroach typing his poems, he couldn't operate the shift key, which is why they're all lower case and without punctuation.

Mehitabel the cat became a frequent companion of Archy.

Three volumes of Archy's poems came out during Marquis' lifetime; there have been various collections of the otherwise uncollected as well. This is a fairly early one, first appearing August 5, 1916.

That's Archy shown above, drawn by George Herriman, of Krazy Kat fame. He's finding the office paste a little stale.

Jennifer at Holds Upon Happiness is featuring Ludwig Lewisohn this week.