/ · John S. Farmer’s Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes
Culture in the Slums
Culture in the Slums
1887
By WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY: “Inscribed to an intense poet”.
I.
Rondeau.
I
“O crikey, Bill!” she ses to me, she ses.
“Look sharp,” ses she, “with them there sossiges.
Yea! sharp with them there bags of mysteree!
1 sausages
For lo!” she ses, “for lo! old pal,” ses she,
2 friend
“I’m blooming peckish, neither more nor less.”
3 very hungry
II
Was it not prime—I leave you all to guess
How prime! to have a jude in love’s distress
4 girl
Come spooning round, and murmuring balmilee,
5 fondling; softly
“O crikey, Bill!”
III
For in such rorty wise doth Love express
6 thus expressively
His blooming views, and asks for your address,
And makes it right, and does the gay and free.
I kissed her—I did so! And her and me
Was pals. And if that ain’t good business.
O crikey, Bill!
II.
Villanelle.
I
Now ain’t they utterly too—too?
7 nice
(She ses, my Missus mine, ses she),
Them flymy little bits of Blue.
8 _i.e._ china
II
Joe, just you kool ’em—nice and skew
9 look at
Upon our old meogginee,
Now ain’t they utterly too-too?
III
They’re better than a pot’n a screw,
They’re equal to a Sunday spree,
Them flymy little bits of Blue!
IV
Suppose I put ’em up the flue,
10 pawn
And booze the profits, Joe? Not me.
11 drink
Now ain’t they utterly too-too ?
V
I do the ’Igh Art fake, I do.
Joe, I’m consummate; and I
see
Them flymy little bits of Blue.
VI
Which, Joe, is why I ses to you—
Æsthetic-like, and limp, and free—
Now ain’t they utterly too-too,
Them flymy little bits of Blue?
III.
Ballade.
I
I often does a quiet read
At Booty Shelley’s poetry;
12 Botticelli(?)
I thinks that Swinburne at a screed
Is really almost too-too fly;
At Signor Vagna’s harmony
13 Wagner(?)
I likes a merry little flutter;
I’ve had at Pater many a shy;
In fact, my form’s the Bloomin’ Utter.
II
My mark’s a tidy little feed,
And ’Enery Irving’s gallery,
To see old ’Amlick do a bleed,
And Ellen Terry on the die,
Or Franky’s ghostes at hi-spy,
And parties carried on a shutter
14 The Corsican Brothers(?)
Them vulgar Coupeaus is my eye!
In fact, my form’s the Bloomin’ Utter.
III
The Grosvenor’s nuts—it is, indeed!
I goes for ’Olman ’Unt like pie.
It’s equal to a friendly lead
15 Notes
To see B. Jones’s judes go by.
Stanhope he makes me fit to cry,
Whistler he makes me melt like butter,
Strudwick he makes me flash my cly—
16 spend money
In fact, my form’s the Bloomin’ Utter.
Envoy.
I’m on for any Art that’s ’Igh!
I talks as quite as I can splutter;
I keeps a Dado on the sly;
In fact, my form’s the Blooming Utter!
Notes
William Ernest Henley, poet, critic, dramatist, and editor was born at
Gloucester in 1849, and educated at the same city. In his early years
(says Men of the Time) he suffered much from ill-health, and
the first section of his Book of Verses (1888: 4th ed. 1893),
In Hospital: Rhymes and Rhythms, was a record of experiences in
the Old Infirmary, Edinburgh, in 1873-5. In 1875 he began writing for
the London magazines, and in 1877 was one of the founders as well as
the editor of London. In this journal much of his early verse
appeared. He was afterwards appointed editor of The Magazine of
Art, and in 1889 of The Scots, afterwards The National
Observer. To these journals, as well as to The Athenaeum
and Saturday Review he has contributed many critical articles,
a selection of which was published in 1890 under the title of Views
and Reviews. In collaboration with Robert Louis Stevenson he has
published a volume of plays, one of which, Beau Austin, was
produced at the Haymarket Theatre in 1892. His second volume of
verses—The Song of the Sword—marks a new departure in style.
He has edited a fine collection of verses, Lyra Heroica, and,
with Mr. Charles Whibley, an anthology of English prose. In 1893 Mr.
Henley received the honour of an L.L.D. degree of St. Andrew’s
university. At the present time he is also editing The New
Review, a series of Tudor Translations, a new Byron,
a new Burns, and collaborating with Mr. J. S. Farmer in
Slang and its Analogues; an historical dictionary of slang.
Taken from
Musa Pedestris,
Three Centuries of Canting Songs and Slang Rhymes
[1536―1896], collected and annotated by John S. Farmer.
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