I was hoping for something frolicsome today but I’m not in the mood. Since January Twentieth it’s felt like April’s Fool every day with the joke on us.
Instead, how about a visit to that princely smile-master, English’s other Lear? Edward (1812-1888) is the sort of convivial companion you’re always seeking an excuse to drop in on. You’re not supposed to like him so well – the academy derogates him as a “nonsense” poet (as if any sweet poem weren’t nonsense!) – but how can you resist? He shakes life like a kaleidoscope into bright happy shapes.
But which frolic to focus on? One of his ludicrous limericks, perhaps, a form he popularized?
There was an Old Man in a tree,
Who was horribly bored by a Bee;
When they said, 'Does it buzz?'
He replied, 'Yes, it does!'
'It's a regular brute of a Bee!'
You could gulp them all day, like jellybeans.
Or how about his irresistible self-portrait?
"How pleasant to know Mr.Lear!"
Who has written such volumes of stuff!
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few think him pleasant enough.
His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
His visage is more or less hideous,
His beard it resembles a wig…
He has many friends, lay men and clerical,
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat…
He weeps by the side of the ocean,
He weeps on the top of the hill;
He purchases pancakes and lotion,
And chocolate shrimps from the mill.
He reads, but he cannot speak, Spanish,
He cannot abide ginger beer:
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
But, no, I revert, to his masterpiece, so familiar, perhaps you know it by heart. (It’s appended below just in case.)
What explains “The Owl and the Pussycat”’’s hypnotic appeal? Genius in poetry, as in music, is not loftiness, but stickiness, how a lilt lifts you and will not let go.
These three jouncing verses recount an improbable love story: cats and birds are famously incompatible. Yet this pair goes to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat, packing honey and money. The owl sings a love song to the cat, accompanying himself on a (necessarily small) guitar. The pussy simpers and proposes marriage. After emigrating – “to the land where the Bong-tree grows” – I think of Jane’s and my four years in Rome – they locate a pig who’ll sell them his nose-ring to mark their marriage and “the Turkey who lives on the hill” to officiate, dine on mince and quince which they eat “with a runcible spoon” – define runcible as your please, Lear made the word up – and in an ecstatic celebration of their romance, “dance by the light of the moon, the moon..”
The infectious rhythm, evocative images, and impossibly happy ending make us smile and wince. Life can be so lovely if we let it. But humans can’t. We’re not owls and pussycats, alas.
Lifetimes ago I composed a tribute to Mr. Lear, not up to his mark, but a doff of the cap. (And anapests, let me tell you, that da-BUM, da-BUM rhythm, are the devil to harness!)
Mister Lear, Mister Lear,
your tomfoolery sears
the pride of a serious poet
who labors for flavors
the sober might savor
and history's huzzahs to prove it
while, Mister Lear, you
with your runcible rue
and irascible ricochet rhyming
survive Brownings (both)
and Lord Tennyson's oaths
and pale Algernon's soulful subliming.
We're inclined to conclude
(what the critics call crude),
Mister Lear, from your clownish survival
that the soothe found in poems
comes from grins more than groans,
our peace more from burble than Bible.
*
The Owl and the Pussy-cat
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"
Pussy said to the Owl, "You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-Tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?" Said the Piggy, "I will."
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.