O fair, full name, o'er which I used to dream, Not thinking; O imperial-spreading fame, And glory never such as poet bore, Until they came, a Kingdom's pride, with thee; I cannot know thee if thou art a lord; Be Alfred Tennyson until the last; Not Bonchurch, nor another. Is there none Can yet persuade thee, ere it be too late?" But he, the poet, listened, and was dumb, And yet resolved. Ah, he would be a lord, And sink the name round which his glory grew. And so there came a herald with a scroll, One who makes ancestors and coats of arms, And gives alike to poet or to peer A pedigree as long as Piccadilly; And he brought with him much emblazonry, A quartered shield, with, on the dexter side, The grand old gardener, Adam, and his wife, A-smiling at the claims of long descent. From _The Echo_, Dec. 7, 1883. * * * * * Nothing yet written about this unpopular title (which jars on the ears of the people), approaches the severity of the following caustic parody which appeared in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, 12th December, 1883:-- BARON ALFRED VERE DE VERE. BARON Alfred Vere de Vere, Of me you win no new renown; You thought to daze the country folk And cockneys when you came to town. See Wordsworth, Shelley, Cowper, Burns, Withdraw in scorn, and sit retired! The last of some six hundred Earls Is not a place to be desired. Baron Alfred Vere de Vere, We thought you proud to bear your name, Your pride is yet no mate for ours, Too proud to think a title fame. We hail the genius--not the lord: We love the poet's truer charms. A simple singer with his dreams Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. Baron Alfred Vere de Vere, I see you march, I hear you say, "Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes!" Is all the burden of your lay. We held you first without a peer, And princely by your noble words words-- The Senior Wrangler of our bards Is now the Wooden Spoon of lords. Baron Alfred Vere de Vere, You put strange memories in my head; For just five decades now have flown Since we all mourned young Arthur dead. Oh, your wet eyes, your low replies! Our tears have mingled with your tears: To think that all such agony Should end in making you a peer! Baron Alfred Vere de Vere, Our England has had poets too: They sang some grand old songs of yore, But never reached such heights as you. Will Shakespeare was a prince of bards, Our Milton was a king to hear, But had their manners that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere?