The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse

by D.B. Wyndham Lewis (Editor), Charles Lee (Editor), Billy Collins (Introduction)

Overview

The editors of this legendary and hilarious anthology write: "It would seem at a hasty glance that to make an anthology of Bad Verse is on the whole a simple matter . . . On the contrary . . . Bad Verse has its canons, like Good Verse. There is bad Bad Verse and good Bad Verse. It has been the constant preoccupation of the compilers to include in this book chiefiy good Bad Verse." Here indeed one finds the best of the worst of the greatest poets of the English language, masterpieces of the maladroit by Dryden, Wordsworth, and Keats, among many others, together with an index ("Maiden, feathered, uncontrolled appetites of, 59;. . . Manure, adjudged a fit subject for the Muse, 91") that is itself an inspired work of folly.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590170380
Publisher:	New York Review Books
Publication date:	04/30/2003
Series:	NYRB Classics Series
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	5.02(w) x 7.97(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Dominic Bevan Wyndham Lewis (1894-1969) was born in Wales and educated at Oxford. Prior to serving in World War I, he intended to pursue the legal profession; but after, having suffered two bouts of shell shock and one of malaria, he set his sights on journalism. In 1919, he became a columnist for The London Daily Express under the pseudonym “Beach Comber.” These pieces and those that he later wrote for The London Daily Mail and The London News Chronicle capture Lewis’s legendary wit and savage, though eloquent, impatience with modern trends and are collected in the volumes At the Green Goose (1923), At the Sign of the Blue Moon (1924), At the Blue Moon Again (1925), and On Straw and Other Conceits (1929). He wrote several literary biographies, acclaimed for both their spirited subjectivity and their attention to historical detail, taking on subjects ranging from Rabelais and Molière to Boswell and Habsburg Emperor Charles V. Mid-career, he also coauthored the story on which Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much was based.

Charles Lee (1870-1956) was born in London to an artistic family who, throughout Lee’s life, heartily supported him in his evolution as an intellectual, fiction writer, poet, playwright, composer, and pianist. He received his BA from London University in 1889 and published his first novel, Widow Woman, in 1896. In poor health, he traveled to Cornwall in 1900 for a brief recuperative visit, staying on seven years, and discovering what would prove to be his most enduring subject: Cornish life, its manners, its landscapes, and its dogged resistance to modern times. In this vein, he wrote four other novels—Our Little Town, Paul Carah Cornishman, Dorinda’s Birthday, and Cynthia in the West—as well as a number of short stories (recently collected in Chasing Tales: The Lost Stories of Charles Lee); several plays, journals, and musical scores; and a guide book, The Vale of Lanherne. Later, after relocating to the London environs, he worked as the senior editor for J. M. Dent, where, owing to his talent for pruning and polishing prose, he came to be known as “the man with the green pen.”

Billy Collins is the author of five books of poetry, including Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems, The Art of Drowning, The Apple That Astonished Paris, and Questions About Angels. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review, Harper’s, and The Atlantic Monthly, among other publications. He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation, and is the winner of numerous awards. In 1992, he was chosen by the New York Public Library to serve as “Literary Lion,” and is currently serving as the 2001-2003 Poet Laureate of the United States. A Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College (CUNY), Collins lives with his wife, Diane, in northern Westchester County, New York

Table of Contents

	Preface	vii
	Proem	xxi
	Hors-d'CEuvre--I	1
	Hors-d'CEuvre--II	14
	An Archangel's Toilet	25
	Yoicks! Gone Away!	25
	The Body: A Fancy	27
	No Doubt	28
	From "Nature's Dessert"	28
	A Posset for Nature's Breakfast	28
	The Return of Charles II	30
	The English Fleet Goes Out	31
	The Faculty at Work	32
	To Account Rendered	32
	The Wonder	33
	Short Curse	33
	On His Mistress Drowned	34
	Heavy Going	36
	The Blue Pencil	37
	Ode upon the New Year	38
	The Chase of the Metaphor	41
	From the Psalms	41
	From the Book of Job	41
	The Crystal Palaces	42
	Possibilities	42
	Rosamond's Song	45
	King Henry's Song	46
	Mr. Gunston is Shown round Heaven	48
	A Polyglot in Paradise	48
	Mr. Mead, Mr. Bates, and Mr. Gouge	49
	Mrs. Warner Arrives Above	49
	On the Landing of William III	49
	From the New Year's Ode, 1731	52
	From the Birthday Ode, 1732	53
	From Another, 1743	54
	Salute to Property	55
	Ode to Miss Margaret Pulteney	56
	To the Right Hon. Robert Walpole, Esq.	56
	Nature Queries	58
	Rustic Interior	61
	Advice to the Stout	61
	The Gastric Muse	62
	On Washing	62
	On Feather Beds	63
	A Submarine Jaunt	65
	Seascape	65
	A Runcible Thought	66
	"Sting Her Up!"	66
	From the "Ode to the King"	67
	From "Ocean, an Ode"	69
	To a Solemn Musick	72
	Final Paean	72
	Ye Nations, Tremble! Parliament has Met	73
	With a Yo, Ho, Ho	74
	La Pudeur Francaise	75
	Pastoral	76
	The Insensible Hottentot	77
	The House Beautiful	78
	Leeds for Pleasure	78
	Home Industries First	80
	Goats and Botanists	82
	The Chase of Jessy	82
	Le Spleen	85
	Bryan and Pereene	88
	Crescendo	90
	The Shame of France	90
	Advice to Slave-Owners	90
	Call to the Muse	91
	Of George, and Property	92
	Il Latte	95
	Hops and Props	97
	The Nail in the Grass	98
	Entry of the Villagers	99
	Cause and Effect	100
	A Sombre Moment	100
	Females, Sacred and Profane	102
	Eliza at the Battle	106
	Fine Figure of a Nymph	107
	"Ae Fond Kiss, and Then	108
	The Maiden Truffle	108
	The Birth of KNO[subscript 2]	108
	Mr. Baker is Well	109
	Miss Hoyland is Coy	110
	Mr. Smith is Dead	110
	A Business Man's Lair	111
	The Baileys	112
	A Bright Morning	113
	Invitation to the Waltz	113
	Verses on the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair	114
	Elegy Written after reading the "Sorrows of Werter"	117
	The Rush to the Lakes	118
	Some Terrify Lions	118
	The Poet is Piqued	119
	The Tiff	119
	Off Duty	122
	The Well-Aimed Tear	122
	Moods	124
	Notice to Tourists	125
	The Temple of Chastity	127
	The Vest of Myrtle	127
	Virtue Protests	129
	Ratiocinative	130
	The Affectionate Heart	130
	George III Enters Paradise	131
	Lovers' Exchange	133
	Domestic Chat	133
	"What with This and That--"	134
	Aphrodite Adiposa	135
	The Evening Stroll	136
	The Evening Sin	137
	Britannia Rejecta	137
	The Tear	139
	The Prisoner Scolds	140
	Caesar Sings	141
	Odd Case of Mr. Gill	144
	(Oxford Street?)	144
	The Aged, Aged Man	145
	Asked and Answered	145
	The Old Huntsman	145
	The Poet Reveals All	147
	Baffled	149
	The Course Prescribed	149
	A Mother's Quest	150
	Insensibility	150
	The Stuffed Owl	150
	Decadence; or, The Umbrella	151
	A Worm's Life Not Everything	151
	An Experiment that Failed	152
	To Some Ladies	153
	The Female Friend	156
	The First-Rate Wife	157
	The Unfortunate Gentleman	158
	From "The Rose-Covered Grave"	159
	Catastrophe	160
	The Poet Questions the Ant	161
	And So Home	161
	A Contretemps	162
	Proximities	163
	The Once-Over	163
	Get-Together Song	164
	Efficiency	165
	Oh, No! We Never Mention Her	167
	Something to Love	168
	I'm Saddest When I Sing	168
	The Soldier's Tear	169
	I'd be a Butterfly	169
	Insect Affection	171
	Marine Vignette	174
	A Request	174
	Fore and Aft	175
	On the Revolution	176
	The Earl and the Girl	177
	A Challenge	179
	Only a Thought	179
	Prone	180
	Bridal Ballad	181
	Eulalie	182
	Miss Adair	183
	Miss Lee	184
	A Call	185
	From "The Vigil of Aiden"	185
	Snoblesse Oblige	187
	Excelsior	190
	Lord Stanhope's Steamer	193
	On the Cork Packet, 1837	194
	Great Western Days	194
	The Death of Huskisson	195
	Roses All the Way	195
	The Railway Boom, 1845	196
	A Lesson for the Proud	197
	Vision of the World, regenerated by the Gospel and the Power of Steam	197
	Trombone Solo	200
	Live and Let Live	201
	Becalmed in the Tropics	201
	A Thought	202
	From "The Old Arm-Chair"	202
	Entry of the Marines	202
	A Thought	203
	Incident in Italy	204
	The Passing of Arthur	206
	Paean	207
	Portrait of a Victorian Author	209
	The Marriage Market	210
	The Poor Relation; or, Pious Hope Frustrated	212
	The Art of Giving (1850)	213
	The Beelah Viaduct	215
	Haloes, Not Hats	216
	Mentem Mortalia Tangunt	216
	A Timely Hint	217
	Check to Song	219
	Financial Note	220
	The Count and the Lady	221
	Sordid Scene	222
	A Divine Mission	224
	Disaster at Sea	226
	A State Occasion	227
	The Good Young Squire	228
	A Graceful Divine	228
	A Lisp in Numbers	229
	From "Ashtaroth," a Drama	230
	The Fight in the Cave	232
	A Warning	232
	Steam: The Seamy Side	234
	Byron: A Critical Survey	235
	A Noble Structure	237
	Hic Finis Rapto	238
	The Poet is Scornful	240
	A Call (1876)	240
	Anti-Bacchics	241
	Ode Sung at the Opening of the International Exhibition	242
	The Lord of Burleigh	244
	Ocean-Spoil Alive, O!	247
	Riflemen Form	247
	Iphigenia in Extremis	248
	Postprandial	249
	Subject Index	253
	Index of Authors	263