Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, VICTORIAN JOURNALISM, by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

VICTORIAN JOURNALISM, by                    
First Line: An old song sung by an aged old pate
Last Line: And the queen's old editor.
Subject(s): Editors; Newspapers; Journalism; Journalists


An old song sung by an aged old pate
Of an old bearded gentleman who worked in great state
Who poured out the old sherry at a bountiful rate
And sat up all night and had breakfast very late
Like an old editor of the Queen's
And the Queen's old editor.

With an old head messenger, who never left the roof,
To bring him his letters and fetch a fresh pulled proof:
Who trimmed his hair and quill and ran for his behoof
And held tiresome callers and visitors aloof,
Like an old editor of the Queen's
And the Queen's old editor.

With an old set of writers shut up in separate rooms,
Severally delivering their three-decker dooms
And getting five pound notes to drive away the glooms
But never knowing each other more than dead men in their tombs
Like an old editor of the Queen's
And the Queen's old editor.

In an old square smelling of soot and printers' ink
With an old public house hard by for meat and drink,
And lit up, if at all, on foggy nights with a link;
And an old old Manager with plenty of time to think.
Like an old editor of the Queen's
And the Queen's old editor.

With a good old fashion, after his morning tub,
To mount upon his prancing nag, no sorry scrub,
In Rotten Row with Lord John shoulders for to rub,
Or turn in for the gossip of quidnuncs in the Club.
Like an old editor of the Queen's
And the Queen's old editor.

With an old frock-coated and an old top-hatted staff
Who never in their lives did anything by half;
Who garnered in the grain and sifted out the chaff,
And when they died left the old files for their epitaph,
Like an old editor of the Queen's
And the Queen's old editor.





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