“they were all in love with dyin’ / and they were doing it in texas”

[larryhammer]

For Poetry Monday, while I could start another Kipling pong to a Housman ping, let’s instead boing off Housman himself:

Poem, after A. E. Housman, Hugh Kingsmill

What, still alive at twenty-two,
A clean, upstanding chap like you!
Sure, if your throat ’tis hard to slit,
Slit your girl’s, and swing for it.

Like enough, you won’t be glad
When they come to hang you, lad:
But bacon’s not the only thing
That’s cured by hanging from a string.

So, when the spilt ink of the night
Spreads o’er the blotting-pad of light
Lads whose job is still to do
Shall whet their knives, and think of you.


Housman claimed this was the best and indeed only good parody of himself he’d seen.

---L.

Subject quote from Pepper, Butthole Surfers.

Comments

[cmcmck]

It IS good!

[mrissa]

Yes, I'm glad Housman liked it, because it is quite good.

[larryhammer]

Yup!

[larryhammer]

I'm glad to learn that he didn't take himself too seriously.

[flemmings]

There's Kingsmill's other one as well:

Tis Summer Time on Bredon,
And now the farmers swear:
The cattle rise and listen
In valleys far and near,
And blush at what they hear.

But when the mists in autumn
On Bredon top are thick,
And happy hymns of farmers
Go up from fold and rick,
The cattle then are sick.

[larryhammer]

Indeed -- I prefer the one I posted, though.

[shewhomust]

My father used to quote this one: he quoted Housman, too, but somehow I learned the Kingsmill in its own right before I had any idea of it as a parody...

[larryhammer]

Heh.

[conuly]

Well, that certainly is a poem all right!