Verse and Worse

Verse and Worse
Harry Graham

Graham Harry

Verse and Worse

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

With guilty, conscience-stricken tears,
I offer up these rhymes of mine
To children of maturer years
(From Seventeen to Ninety-nine).
A special solace may they be
In days of second infancy.

The frenzied mother who observes
This volume in her offspring's hand,
And trembles for the darling's nerves,
Must please to clearly understand,
If baby suffers by and by
The Publisher's at fault, not I!

But should the little brat survive,
And fatten on this style of Rhyme,
To raise a Heartless Home and thrive
Through a successful life of crime,
The Publisher would have you see
That I am to be thanked, not he!

Fond parent, you whose children are
Of tender age (from two to eight),
Pray keep this little volume far
From reach of such, and relegate
My verses to an upper shelf;
Where you may study them yourself.

FOREWORD

The Press may pass my Verses by
With sentiments of indignation,
And say, like Greeks of old, that I
Corrupt the Youthful Generation;
I am unmoved by taunts like these —
(And so, I think, was Socrates).

Howe'er the Critics may revile,
I pick no journalistic quarrels,
Quite realising that my Style
Makes up for any lack of Morals;
For which I feel no shred of shame —
(And Byron would have felt the same).

I don't intend a Child to read
These lines, which are not for the Young;
For, if I did, I should indeed
Feel fully worthy to be hung.
(Is 'hanged' the perfect tense of 'hang'?
Correct me, Mr. Andrew Lang!)

O Young of Heart, tho' in your prime,
By you these verses may be seen!
Accept the Moral with the Rhyme,
And try to gather what I mean.
But, if you can't, it won't hurt me!
(And Browning would, I know, agree.)

Be reassured, I have not got
The style of Stephen Phillips' heroes,
Nor Henry Jones's pow'r of Plot,
Nor wit like Arthur Wing Pinero's!
(If so, I should not waste my time
In writing you this sort of rhyme.)

I strive to paint things as they Are,
Of Realism the true Apostle;
All flow'ry metaphors I bar,
Nor call the homely thrush a 'throstle.'
Such synonyms would make me smile.
(And so they would have made Carlyle.)

My Style may be, at times, I own,
A trifle cryptic or abstruse;
In this I do not stand alone,
And need but mention, in excuse,
A thousand world-familiar names,
From Meredith to Henry James.

From these my fruitless fancy roams
To Aesop's or La Fontaine's Fable,
From Doyle's or Hemans' 'Stately Ho(l)mes,'
To t'other of The Breakfast Table;
Like Galahad, I wish (in vain)
'My wit were as the wit of Twain!

Had I but Whitman's rugged skill,
(And managed to escape the Censor),
The Accuracy of a Mill,
The Reason of a Herbert Spencer,
The literary talents even