Harry Graham

“ There are men, both staid and sound, who hold it happiness unique,
At which only the irreverent can scoff,
That is reached by means of brassey, driver, niblick, spoon, or cleek,
And that life is not worth living without Golf.
Well, I hope it may be so; for myself I only know
That I never more shall try another stroke;
Yes, I've wearied of the sport, since a lesson I was taught,
At the place where the old cleek broke. ”

“ O Learn to Take things easily— Espeshly Other People's Things; And Time will make your fingers deft At what is known as Petty Theft.
Your precious moments do not waste; Take Ev'rything that isn't tied! Who knows but you may have a Taste, A Gift perhaps, for Homicide,— (A Mania which, encouraged, thrives On Taking Other People's Lives) .
"Fools and Their Money soon must part!" And you can help this on, may be, If, in the kindness of your Heart, You Learn to Take things easily; And be, with little education, A Prince of Misappropriation. "A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss." ”

“ And though his constituents remain loyal and his seat secure, there arrives a day when he begins to weary of the slavery of parliamentary life, of the drudgery of a political career. Like Macaulay, he may at length come to define politics as a pursuit from which the most that those who are engaged in it can expect is that by relinquishing liberal studies and social pleasures, by passing nights without sleep and summers without one glimpse of the beauty of nature, they may attain "that laborious, that invidious, that closely watched slavery which is mocked with the name of power." ”

“ With his fist in your mouth
He may say North is South,
And you cannot well give him the lie;
For it's hard to converse on such themes as the weather,
With jawbone and tongue fastened firmly together!
To a sensitive soul like the dentist
You should always avoid talking "shop."
If he drops in to tea,
You must certainly see
That your wife doesn't ask him to "stop!"
He is facile princeps, perhaps, of his calling;
But jokes about princip'ly forceps are galling!
There are people who say of the dentist
That he isn't a gentleman quite. ”

“ Minor bards may work like niggers,
Framing epic rhyme or rune,
To extol the timely rigours
Of an English June;
Though its charms I well remember,
I prefer November!
Though the tourists sing together
When July is warm and bright,
While to sportsmen on the heather,
Bent on bagging fur and feather,
August brings delight;
Though September's seldom stormy,
And October, chill and dry,
Carries joy to every Dormy-
House from Wick to Rye;
Yet (since I am not a member)
I prefer November!
In the street the slime may spatter [114]
Ev'ry wretched passer-by ”

“ The flowers of rhetoric bloom no longer in the cold business-like atmosphere of the parliamentary garden; only the more practical but unromantic [223] vegetables remain. The rich embroideries of trope and metaphor have been roughly torn from modern speech, leaving the bare skeleton of reason exposed to the public gaze. The grandiose orator of the past, with his ornate phraseology, his graceful periods, his quotations from the poets, has been ousted by the passionless debater, flinging, like the improvident O'Connell, his brood of robust thoughts into the world, without a rag to cover them. ”

“ In the journals that ev'ry one reads nowadays,
Is the personal matter, Impertinent chatter,
The tales of the tailor, the barber, the hatter;
Society small talk, And mere servants'-hall talk,
The sort of what's-nobody's-business-at-all-talk;
And those who can handle The latest big scandal
With the taste of a Thug and the tact of a Vandal,
Whatever society paper they write in,
Can always provide what their readers delight in.
An article, vulgarly written, which deals
With the food that celebrities eat at their meals
To the popular intellect always appeals. ”

“ Do you recall those bygone days, When you received with kindly praise My bantling book of Rhyme? Praise undeserved, alas! and yet How sweet! For, tho' we had not met, (Ah! what a waste of time!) I could the more enjoy such mercies Since I delighted in your verses.
And when a Poet stoops to smile On some one of the rank and file, (Inglorious—if not mute,) Some groundling bard who craves to climb, Like me, the dizzy rungs of Rhyme, To reach the Golden Fruit; For one in such a situation The faintest praise is no damnation. ”

“ And though ev'ry journal, with cunning infernal,
Our speeches refuses to quote,
Our conduct bears witness to feminine fitness,
And shows we are ripe for the Vote!
On roofs and in cellars we've hidden,
We've chained ourselves firmly to posts,
Attended receptions, without being bidden,
And heckled political hosts.
With dog-whip and missile, with bell and with whistle,
Our cause we have sought to promote;
By scratching and squalling, by biting and brawling,
We've proved ourselves fit for the Vote! ”

“ And if La Rochefoucauld's maxim be true, that we readily pardon those who bore us, but never those whom we bore, the House of Commons has need of a most forgiving spirit to listen patiently to so much of what can only be described as vox et praeterea nihil.
The level of eloquence is, no doubt, higher in the House of Lords than elsewhere. Peers include a greater number of orators among their numbers; opportunities for a display of their talents are more rare; their powers are not dissipated in prolonged debates, as in the Commons, but are reserved for full-dress occasions. ”

“ "It is Never Too Late to Mend."
Since it can never be too late To change your life, or else renew it, Let the unpleasant process wait Until you are compelled to do it. The State provides (and gratis too) Establishments for such as you.
Remember this, and pluck up heart, That, be you publican or parson, Your ev'ry art must have a start, From petty larceny to arson; And even in the burglar's trade, The cracksman is not born, but made.
So, if in your career of crime, You fail to carry out some "coup", Then try again a second time, And yet again, until you do; ”