Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


ENGLAND'S ALFRED ABROAD by OWEN SEAMAN

First Line: WRONG? ARE THEY WRONG? OF COURSE THEY ARE
Last Line: AND THE 'BUS TO CIMIEZ.
Subject(s): AUSTIN, ALFRED (1835-1913); JUDGMENT DAY; END OF THE WORLD; DOOMSDAY; FALL OF MAN;

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 @3Times?@1

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 @3Jameson's Ride@1 and knocked
The Monaco Casino.

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 @3rapide@1 to Nice,
And the 'bus to Cimiez.



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