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Calverley: Verses and Fly Leaves
Grinder, winsome grinsome Grinder!
They who see thee and whose soul
Melts not at thy charms, are blinder
Than a trebly-bandaged mole:
They to whom thy curt (yet clever)
Talk, thy music and thine ape,
Seem not to be joys for ever,
Are but brutes in human shape.
'Tis not that thy mien is stately,
'Tis not that thy tones are soft;
'Tis not that I care so greatly
For the same thing played so oft:
But I've heard mankind abuse thee;
And perhaps it's rather strange,
But I thought that I would choose thee
For encomium, as a change.
C. S. CALVERLEY
BALLAD
The auld wife sat at her ivied door,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
A thing she had frequently done before;
And her spectacles lay on her apron'd knees.
The piper he piped on the hill-top high,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
Till the cow said 'I die,' and the goose ask'd 'Why?'
And the dog said nothing, but search'd for fleas.
The farmer he strode through the square farmyard;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
His last brew of ale was a trifle hard—
The connexion of which with the plot one sees.
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