Thomas William Hodgson Crosland

    My dear Muddied Oaf, -
    While still a youth and all unknown to fame,
    I went to school.
    And on a certain Saturday
    I put on a beautiful blue jersey, and some striped knickers,
    And betook myself into a damp field
    With my hands nice and clean,
    And my hair parted.
    Within an hour's time
    My shins had the appearance of a broken paint can,
    My garments were covered with mud,
    One of my teeth had somehow got swallowed,
    And my hair was out of joint.
    When I come to think of it,
    In that hour I must have been a Muddied Oaf,
    Though I did not know what to call myself.
    And no doubt on that and successive Saturday afternoons
    I won my various journalistic Waterloos,
    And contracted a stubborn cardi...

    My dear Poet Laureate, -
    Do not, I implore you,
    Be perturbed.
    It is not my purpose to harp
    Upon old strings,
    Or to express the smallest satisfaction
    Either with you as an official personage
    Or with your verses as a production of an official personage;
    I have called to-day, as it were,
    For a little quiet talk:
    You are a fellow-townsman of mine,
    Consequently
    I am a fellow-townsman of yours;
    We ought to get on well together.
    Between ourselves, my dear Poet Laureate,
    It seems to me
    That if you were to set about it
    In the right way
    You might, with very little trouble
    Render a real service to the State
    Being as you are
    The only writer fellow
    Who ...

    May it please your Holiness
    There are possibly two,
    Or it may be three,
    Men
    In Europe
    Who could indite this Ode
    Without treading on anybody's corns.
    After mature reflection,
    I am inclined to think that I am those three men
    So that you will understand.
    Well, my dear Pope, I hear on all hands
    That you are engaged, at the present moment,
    In the cheerful act and process
    Of having a Jubilee.
    I have had several myself
    And I know what pleasant little functions they are,
    Especially when the King
    Sends a mission to congratulate one on them.
    To proceed,
    You must know, my dear Pope,
    That, by conviction
    And in my own delightful country,
    I am a rabid, s...

    My dear Sir, -
    You may think it unkind of me
    To interrupt the peaceful calm of your holiday
    With a poem about business.
    But I assure you, my dear sir,
    That I do so with the very best intentions,
    And at the call of what I consider to be duty.
    Duty, as you know, is a tremendous abstraction,
    And brings a man into all sorts of difficult corners.
    It was duty that took you into Parliament:
    Similarly it is duty that constrains me to Odes.
    When a man sees another man and pities him,
    It is the duty of the first man to let the other man know about it
    Delicately.
    I pity you, my dear Mr. Private Member,
    From the bottom of a bottomless heart.
    Many a time and oft in the course of my rambles
    Through...

    (Touching his Audience of the King)

    My dear Mr. Chamberlain,
    Since you last heard from me,
    Many curious things have happened,
    Both in Birmingham and abroad.
    As to the happenings in Birmingham,
    Nobody cares tuppence for them.
    The happenings abroad, however, are a different matter,
    Inasmuch as they have brought you great fame,
    And cost us a lot of money.
    Your influence in the governance of this great country, my dear Mr. Chamberlain,
    Is undoubted.
    When you say things,
    It is understood that all your fellow-ministers
    Sit up and look good.
    "We don't like it," they say in their decent hearts;
    "But Joseph says it must be so, and be so it must."
    To the delicate souls of Arthur Ja...

    (On its Centenary)

    My dear Stock Exchange, -
    I am given to understand
    That to-day you are a hundred years old,
    And that to-day therefore
    You will celebrate
    What nine men out of every ten of you
    Call your "Centeenary"
    By taking a whole holiday instead of a half one.
    It would be easy for me, my dear Stock Exchange,
    To present you
    With a sort of illuminated address on this occasion;
    But I refrain.
    One short year ago
    I tumbled into a little money;
    It was "not enough to live upon,"
    But it was a nice sum.
    A man introduced me to a member of the Stock Exchange,
    The member of the Stock Exchange introduced me to a little game of "in and out,"
    And my five hu...

    My dear Sir, or Madam, -
    When James Watt,
    Or some such person,
    Had the luck
    To see a kettle boil,
    He little dreamed
    That he was discovering you,
    Otherwise he would have let his kettle boil
    For a million million years
    Without saying anything about it.
    However,
    James Watt
    Omitted to take cognisance of the ultimate trouble,
    And here you are.
    And here, alas! you will stay,
    Till our iron roads are beaten into ploughshares,
    And Messrs. Cook & Sons are at rest.
    "When I was young, a single man,
    And after youthful follies ran"
    (Which, strange as it may seem, is Wordsworth)
    Your goings to and fro upon the earth,
    And walkings up and down thereon,
    ...

    (After Peace Night)

    Dear Sir, or Madam,
    As the case may be,
    When Britain first,
    At Heaving's command,
    Arose from out
    The azure main,
    This was the chawter
    Of that land
    And gawdian a-a-a-a-angels
    Sang this strain:
    Don't you think so?
    For my own part,
    I am quite sure of it:
    Monday night convinced me.
    Mafeking night,
    As you may remember,
    Was a honeyed
    And beautiful affair.
    But
    Peace night,
    I think,
    Really outdid it in splendours.
    At the cafe
    Which I most frequent,
    All was Peace.
    Round the table next mine,
    There were seventeen Jews,
    With a Union Jack.
    Ever and anon
...

    (After Dunkirk)

    My dear Tsar, -
    I am owing you
    The usual apologies.
    I did not come to Dunkirk,
    I did not come to Dunkirk,
    I did not come to Dunkirk;
    I was billed as usual,
    But at the last moment
    I did not come.
    So that it was in vain, my dear Tsar,
    That you and your Imperial spouse
    (To whom I offer my very humble duty),
    It was in vain
    That you and your Imperial spouse
    (To whom I again offer my very humble duty)
    Searched the poop of La Marguerite
    With your Imperial binoculars;
    I was not there,
    I was not there,
    (O pregnant phrase!)
    I was not there;
    I was not on the poop,
    I was not on the poop,
    I was not o...