Lyra Frivola | Page 2

Amid your
darksome miseries be this your guiding star--
'Tis simply the
remainder of a Bronchial Catarrh.

In various ways do various men invite misfortune's rods,-- Some row
within their College boat,--some Logic read for Mods.: But oh! of all
the human ills our happiness that mar
I do not know the equal of a
Bronchial Catarrh!
PENSÉES DE NOEL
When the landlord wants the rent
Of your humble tenement,
When
the Christmas bills begin
Daily, hourly pouring in,
When you pay
your gas and poor rate,
Tip the rector, fee the curate,
Let this
thought your spirit cheer--
Christmas comes but once a year.
When the man who brings the coal
Claims his customary dole:

When the postman rings and knocks
For his usual Christmas-box:

When you're dunned by half the town
With demands for
half-a-crown,--
Think, although they cost you dear,
Christmas
comes but once a year.
When you roam from shop to shop,
Seeking, till you nearly drop,

Christmas cards and small donations
For the maw of your relations,

Questing vainly 'mid the heap
For a thing that's nice, and cheap:

Think, and check the rising tear,
Christmas comes but once a year.
Though for three successive days
Business quits her usual ways,

Though the milkman's voice be dumb,
Though the paper doesn't
come;
Though you want tobacco, but
Find that all the shops are
shut:
Bravely still your sorrows bear--
Christmas comes but once a
year.
When mince-pies you can't digest
Join with waits to break your rest:

When, oh when, to crown your woe,
Persons who might better
know
Think it needful that you should
Don a gay convivial mood;--

Bear with fortitude and patience
These afflicting dispensations:

Man was born to suffer here:
Christmas comes but once a year.

AD LECTIONEM SUAM
When Autumn's winds denude the grove,
I seek my Lecture, where it
lurks
'Mid the unpublished portion of
My works,
And ponder, while its sheets I scan,
How many years away have slipt

Since first I penned that ancient manuscript.
I know thee well--nor can mistake
The old accustomed pencil stroke

Denoting where I mostly make
A joke,--
Or where coy brackets signify
Those echoes faint of classic wit

Which, if a lady's present, I
Omit.
Though Truth enlarge her widening range,
And Knowledge be with
time increased,
While thou, my Lecture! dost not change
The least,
But fixed immutable amidst
The advent of a newer lore,

Maintainest calmly what thou didst
Before:
Though still malignity avows
That unsuccessful candidates
To thee
ascribe their frequent ploughs
In Greats--
Once more for intellectual food
Thou'lt serve: an added phrase or two

Will make thee really just as good
As new:
And listening crowds, that throng the spot,
Will still as usual
complain
That "Here's the old familiar rot
Again!"
RUBÁIYYÁT OF MODERATIONS
I
Wake! for the Nightingale upon the Bough
Has sung of Moderations:
ay, and now
Pales in the Firmament above the Schools
The
Constellation of the boding Plough.

II
I too in distant Ages long ago
To him that ploughed me gave a Quid
or so:
It was a Fraud: it was not good enough;
Ne'er for my Quid
had I my Quid pro Quo.
III
Yet--for the Man who pays his painful Pence
Some Laws may frame
from dark Experience:
Still from the Wells of harsh Adversity
May
Wisdom draw the Pail of Common Sense--
IV
Take these few Rules, which--carefully rehearsed--
Will land the
User safely in a First,
Second, or Third, or Gulf: and after all

There's nothing lower than a Plough at worst.
V
Plain is the Trick of doing Latin Prose,
An Esse Videantur at the
Close
Makes it to all Intents and Purposes
As good as anything of
Cicero's.
VI
Yet let it not your anxious Mind perturb
Should Grammar's Law your
Diction fail to curb:
Be comforted: it is like Tacitus:
Tis mostly
done by leaving out the Verb.
VII
Mark well the Point: and thus your Answer fit
That you thereto all
Reference omit,
But argue still about it and about
Of This, and That,
and T'Other--not of It.
VIII

Say, why should You upon your proper Hook
Dilate on Things which
whoso cares to look
Will find, in Libraries or otherwhere,
Already
stated in a printed Book?
IX
Keep clear of Facts: the Fool who deals in those
A Mucker he
inevitably goes:
The dusty Don who looks your Paper o'er
He
knows about it all--or thinks he knows.
X
A Pipe, a Teapot, and a Pencil blue,
A Crib, perchance a
Lexicon--and You
Beside him singing in a Wilderness
Of
Suppositions palpably untrue--
XI
'Tis all he needs: he is content with these:
Not Facts he wants, but soft
Hypotheses
Which none need take the Pains to verify:
This is the
Way that Men obtain Degrees!
XII
'Twixt Right and Wrong the Difference is dim:
'Tis settled by the
Moderator's Whim:
Perchance the Delta on your Paper marked

Means that his Lunch has disagreed with him:
XIII
Perchance the Issue lies in Fortune's Lap:
For if the Names be shaken
in a Cap
(As some aver) then Truth and Fallacy
No longer signify a
single Rap.
XIV
Nay! till the Hour for pouring out the Cup
Of Tea post-prandial calls

you home to sup,
And from the dark Invigilator's Chair
The mild
Muezzin whispers "Time is Up"--
XV
The Moving Finger writes: then, having writ,
The Product of your
Scholarship and Wit
Deposit in the