The critics are all anthropophagous, And feed on poetic flesh; My heart nestles in my esophagous, To think I’ve been in their mesh. As vessels that sail on the Bosphorus Catch Constantinople’s beams, So my soul from prosody’s phosphorus Still gathers Dædalian gleams. _Funny Folks_, May 11, 1878. ―――― _The Family Herald_ (London) for July 28, 1888, contained an amusing article on _Parodies_, from which the following is an extract: “But we wish to get away from well-trodden tracks, and we will for once forsake our usual purely didactic groove in order that we may give our readers an idea of what we regard as artistic drollery, Take this dreadful imitation of Mr. Swinburne’s manner. The parodist seems to have genuinely enjoyed his work; and we have no doubt but that Mr. Swinburne laughed as heartily as anybody. The poet is supposed to be attending a wedding of distinguished persons in Westminster Abbey, and the naughty scoffer represents him as bursting forth with the following rather alarming clarion call―― There is glee in the groves of the Galilean―― The groves that were wont to be gray and glum―― And a sound goes forth to the dim Ægean, To Helen hopeless and Dido dumb―― The sound of a noise of cab or carriage, A rhythm of rapture, a mode of marriage. Sing “Hallelujah!” Shout “Io Pæan!” Hymen――O Hymen, behold, they come! What shall I sing to them? How shall I speak to them? Whose is the speech that a groom thinks good? Oh that a while I might gabble in Greek to them―― Gabble and gush and be understood, Gush and glow and be understanded, Apprehended and shaken-handed! Yea, though a minute should seem a week to them, I would utter such words as I might or could! For winter’s coughs and cossets are over, And all the season of sniffs and snows, The rheums that ravish lover from lover, The eyes that water, the nose that blows; And time forgotten is not remembered, And cards are wedded and cake dismembered, And in the Abbey, closed, under cover, Blooms and blossoms and breaks love’s rose. A masterpiece! And there is not a touch of malignity in the lines; the poet’s curious way of writing occasionally in the Hebraic style, his vagueness, his peculiar mode of procuring musical effects, are all picked out and shown with a smile. No one has quite equalled Caldecott, but this anonymous wit runs him hard.” Unfortunately the author of the article omits to state the source from whence he derived the parody he praises so highly. ―――― HOME, SWEET HOME.