England's Alfred Abroad

[M. Alfred Austin, poete-laureat d'Angleterre, vient d'arriver a Nice, où il a devance la Reine. Il etait, hier, dans les jardins de Monte-Carlo. Sera-ce sous notre ciel qu'il ecrira son premier poeme?, Menton-Mondain.]

Wrong? are they wrong? Of course they are,
I venture to reply;
For I bore 'my first' (and, I hope, my worst)
A month or so gone by;
And I can't repeat it under this
Or any other sky.

What! has the public never heard
In these benighted climes
That nascent note of my Laureate throat,
That fluty fitte of rhymes
Which occupied about a half
A column of the Times?

They little know what they have lost,
Nor what a carnal beano
They might have spent in the thick of Lent
If only Daniel Leno
Had sung them Jameson's Ride and knocked
The Monaco Casino.

Some day the croupiers' furtive eyes
Will all be wringing wet;
Even the Prince will hardly mince
The language of regret
At entertaining unawares
The famed Alhambra Pet.

But still not quite incognito
I mark the moving scene,
In a tepid zone where (like my own)
The palms are ever green,
And find myself reported as
A herald of the Queen.

Here where aloft the heavens are blue,
And blue the seas below,
I roll my eye and fondly try
To get the rhymes to go,
As I pace The Garden that I love,
Composing all I know.

But when my poet-pinions droop,
And all the air is wan,
I enter in to the courts of sin
And put a louis on,
And hold my heart and look again,
And lo! the thing is gone!

Wrong? is it wrong? To baser crafts
Has England's Alfred pandered,
Who once to the sign of Phbus' shrine
With awesome gait meandered,
And ever wrote in the cause of right
According to his Standard?

Nay! this is life! to take a turn
On Fortune's captious crust;
To pluck the day in a human way
Like men of common dust;
But O! if England's only bard
Should absolutely bust!

A laureate never borrows on
His coming quarter's pay;
And I mean to stop or ever I pop
My crown of peerless bay;
So I'll take the next rapide to Nice,
And the 'bus to Cimiez.

MENTONE, Feb. 1896.

Owen Seaman

Owen Seaman, an English poet born on September 18, 1861, and passed away on February 2, 1936, is most renowned for his tenure as the editor of the satirical magazine "Punch." His work is characterized by its wit and humor, often addressing social and political issues of his time. Seaman's influence on literary and journalistic satire was significant, and he contributed greatly to the popularization of this style in English literature during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Owen Seaman

Vigo-Street Eclogue, A

Owen Seaman, Simple Poetry

Ars Postera

Owen Seaman, Simple Poetry

An Ode To Spring In The Metropolis

Owen Seaman, Simple Poetry

Plea For Trigamy, A

Owen Seaman, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Elegi Musarum

(AFTER W. W.)

[To Mr. St. Loe Strachey.]

Dawn of the year that emerges, a fine and ebullient Phnix,
    Forth from the cinders of Self, out of the ash of the Past;
Year that discovers my Muse in the thick of purpureal sonnets,
    Slating diplomacy's sloth, blushing for 'Abdul the d----d';
Year that in guise of a herald declaring the close of the tourney
    Clears the redoubtable lists hot with the Battle of Bays;
Binds on the brows of the Tory, the highly respectable Austin,
    Laurels that Phbus of old wore on the top of his tuft;

Leaving the locks of the hydra, of Bodley the numerous-headed,
    Clean as the chin of a boy, bare as a babe in a bath;
Year that, I see in the vista the principal verb of the sentence
    Loom as a deeply-desired bride tha...

Owen Seaman

To Mr. William Watson.

[On writing the first instalment of The Purple East, a 'fine sonnet which it is our privilege to publish.' Westminster Gazette, Dec. 16, 1895.]


Dear Mr. Watson, we have heard with wonder,
    Not all unmingled with a sad regret,
That little penny blast of purple thunder,
    You issued in the Westminster Gazette;
The Editor describes it as a sonnet;
I wish to make a few remarks upon it.

Never, O craven England, nevermore
    Prate thou of generous effort, righteous aim!
So ran the lines, and left me very sore,
    For you may guess my heart was hot with shame:
Even thus early in your ample song
I felt that something must be really wrong.

But when I learned that our ignoble nation
    Lay sleeping like a log, and lay al...

Owen Seaman

Marsyas In Hades

(AFTER SIR L. M.)

                        Next I saw
A pensive gentleman of middle age,
That leaned against a Druid oak, his pipe
Pendent beneath his chin, a double one,
(Meaning the pipe); reluctant was his breath,
For he had mingled in the Morris dance
And rested blown; but damsels in their teens,
All decorous and decorously clad,
Their very ankles hardly visible,
Recalled his motions; while, for chaperon,
Good Mrs. Grundy up against the wall
Beamed approbation.

                On his face I read
Signs of high sadness such as poets wear,
Being divinely discontented with
The praise of jeunes filles. Even as I looked,
He touched the portion of his pipe reserved
For minor poetry of solemn tone,
Checking the humorous stops inten...

Owen Seaman

Song Of Renunciation, A

(AFTER A. C. S.)

In the days of my season of salad,
    When the down was as dew on my cheek,
And for French I was bred on the ballad,
    For Greek on the writers of Greek,
Then I sang of the rose that is ruddy,
    Of 'pleasure that winces and stings,'
Of white women and wine that is bloody,
    And similar things.

Of Delight that is dear as Desi-er,
    And Desire that is dear as Delight;
Of the fangs of the flame that is fi-er,
    Of the bruises of kisses that bite;
Of embraces that clasp and that sever,
    Of blushes that flutter and flee
Round the limbs of Dolores, whoever
    Dolores may be.

I sang of false faith that is fleeting
    As froth of the swallowing seas,
Time's curse that is fatal as Keating
    Is fat...

Owen Seaman

An Ode To Spring In The Metropolis

(AFTER R. LE G.)

Is this the Seine?
And am I altogether wrong
About the brain,
Dreaming I hear the British tongue?
Dear Heaven! what a rhyme!
And yet 'tis all as good
As some that I have fashioned in my time,
Like bud and wood;
And on the other hand you couldn't have a more precise or neater
Metre.

Is this, I ask, the Seine?
And yonder sylvan lane,
Is it the Bois?
Ma foi!
Comme elle est chic, my Paris, my grisette!
Yet may I not forget
That London still remains the missus
Of this Narcissus.

No, no! 'tis not the Seine!
It is the artificial mere
That permeates St. James's Park.
The air is bosom-shaped and clear;
And, Himmel! do I hear the lark,
The good old Shelley-Words...

Owen Seaman

To A Boy-Poet Of The Decadence

[Showing curious reversal of epigram, 'La nature l'a fait sanglier; la civilisation l'a reduit a l'etat de cochon.']


But my good little man, you have made a mistake
    If you really are pleased to suppose
That the Thames is alight with the lyrics you make;
    We could all do the same if we chose.

From Solomon down, we may read, as we run,
    Of the ways of a man and a maid;
There is nothing that's new to us under the sun,
    And certainly not in the shade.

The erotic affairs that you fiddle aloud
    Are as vulgar as coin of the mint;
And you merely distinguish yourself from the crowd
    By the fact that you put 'em in print.

You're a 'prentice, my boy, in the primitive stage,
    And you itch, like a boy, to confess:
When you kno...

Owen Seaman