Swinburne and Browning are often parodied for these (perhaps only apparent) reasons, and the poets of the æsthetic school of course offered especially fine opportunities.
Parodies of Rossetti and his followers are often exceedingly funny, though not at all difficult to write, as the originals both in manner and matter fairly invite absurd incongruities.
Nursery Rhymes seem to find favor with the parodists as themes to work upon. A collection of Mother Goose's Melodies as they have been reset by clever pens, would be both large and interesting.
The masters of parody, however, are as a rule to be found among the master poets. Thackeray turned his genius to imitative account; Swinburne parodied himself as well as his fellow-poets; Rudyard Kipling has done some of the best parodies in the language, and C. S. Calverley's burlesques are classics. The work of these writers may be said to be in the third class; for not only do they preserve the diction and style of the author imitated, but they seem to go beyond that, and, assimilating for the moment his very mentality, caricature not only his expressed thoughts but his abstract cerebrations.
It is easy to understand how Swinburne with his facile fancy and wonderful command of words could be among the best parodists. In his “Heptalogia" are long and careful parodies of no less than seven prominent poets, each of which is a masterpiece, and the parody of Browning is especially good. Browning, of course, has always been a tempting mark for the parodists, but though it is easy to imitate his eccentricities superficially, it is only the greater minds that have parodied his subtler peculiarities. Among the best are Calverley's and Kipling's.
Kipling's parodies, written in his early days, and not often to be found in editions of his collected works, rank with the highest. His parody of Swinburne, while going to the very limit of legitimate imitation, is restrained by a powerful hand, and so kept within convincing bounds. The great fault with most parodies of Swinburne is that exaggeration is given play too freely, and the result is merely a meaningless mass of sound. Clever in a different way is Owen Seaman's parody of Swinburne. Mr. Seaman is one of the most brilliant of modern parodists and his parodies, though long, are perfect in all respects.
Among the most exquisite parodies we have ever read must be counted those of Anthony C. Deane, originally published in various London papers, and Calverley's works are too well known even to require mention.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is often parodied, but rarely worthily. One reason for this lies in the fact that it is not Omar who is parodied at all, but Fitzgerald; consequently, the imitation is merely a form-rendering and more often only lines in the Rubaiyat metre.
Shakespeare, with the exception of one or two of his most hackneyed speeches, is rarely parodied; doubtless owing to the fact that his harmonious work shows no incongruities of matter or manner, and strikes no false notes for the parodists to catch at.
The extent of the domain of parody is vastly larger than is imagined by the average reader, and its already published bibliographies show thousands of collected parodies of varying degrees of merit.
Of all the poets Tennyson has probably been parodied the most; followed closely in this respect by Edgar Allan Poe. After these, Browning, Swinburne, and Walt Whitman; then Moore, Wordsworth, Longfellow, and Thomas Campbell.
Of single poems the one showing the greatest number of parodies is “My Mother," by Ann Taylor; after this those most used for the purpose have been “The Raven," Gray's “Elegy," “The Song of the Shirt," “The May Queen," “Locksley Hall," “The Burial of Sir John Moore," and Kingsley's “Three Fishers."
Parody, then, is a tribute to popularity, and consequently to merit of one sort or another, and in the hands of the initiate may be considered a touch-stone that proves true worth.
AFTER OMAR KHAYYAM
THE GOLFER'S RUBAIYAT
WAKE! for the sun has driven in equal flight
The stars before him from the Tee of Night,
And holed them every one without a Miss,
Swinging at ease his gold-shod Shaft of Light.
Now, the fresh Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Pores on this Club and That with anxious eye,
And dreams of Rounds beyond the Rounds of Liars.
Come, choose your Ball, and in the fire of Spring,
Your Red Coat and your wooden Putter fling;
The Club of Time has but a little while
To waggle, and the Club is on the swing.
A Bag of Clubs, a Silver Town or two,
A Flask of Scotch, a Pipe of Shag, and Thou
Beside me caddying in the Wilderness —
Ah, Wilderness were Paradise enow.
Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent
Jamie and His, and heard great argument
Of Grip, and Stance, and Swing; but evermore
Found at the Exit but a Dollar spent.
With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand sought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd;
“You hold it in this Way, and you swing it So."
The swinging Brassie strikes; and, having struck,
Moves on; nor all your Wit or future Luck
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Stroke,
Nor from the Card a single Seven pluck.
No hope by Club or Ball to win the Prize;
The batter'd, blacken'd Remade sweetly flies,
Swept cleanly from the Tee; this is the Truth
Nine-tenths is Skill, and all the rest is Lies.
And that inverted Ball they call the High,
By which the Duffer thinks to live or die,
Lift not your hands to It for help, for it
As impotently froths as you or I.
Yon rising Moon that leads us home again,
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising, wait for us
At this same Turning – and for One in vain.
And when, like her, my Golfer, I have been
And am no more above the pleasant Green,
And you in your mild Journey pass the Hole
I made in One – ah, pay my Forfeit then!
AN OMAR FOR LADIES1
ONE for her Club and her own Latch-key fights,
Another wastes in Study her good Nights.
Ah, take the Clothes and let the Culture go,
Nor heed the grumble of the Women's Rights!
Look at the Shop-girl all about us – “Lo,
The Wages of a month," she says, “I blow
Into a Hat, and when my hair is waved,
Doubtless my Friend will take me to the Show."
And she who saved her coin for Flannels red,
And she who caught Pneumonia instead,
Will both be Underground in Fifty Years,
And