Today’s poem at Flos Carmeli is Leigh Hunt’s Song of Fairies Robbing an Orchard. I would be surprised if Hunt didn’t intend that poem to be amusing, as well as these two:
To a Fish
You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced,
Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea,
Gulping salt-water everlastingly,
Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced,
And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste;
And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be,–
Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry,
Legless, unloving, infamously chaste:–
O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring wights,
What is’t ye do? What life lead? eh, dull goggles?
How do ye vary your vile days and nights?
How pass your Sundays? Are ye still but joggles
In ceaseless wash? Still nought but gapes, and bites,
And drinks, and stares, diversified with boggles?
A Fish Answers
Amazing monster! that, for aught I know,
With the first sight of thee didst make our race
For ever stare! O flat and shocking face,
Grimly divided from the breast below!
Thou that on dry land horribly dost go
With a split body and most ridiculous pace,
Prong after prong, disgracer of all grace,
Long-useless-finned, haired, upright, unwet, slow!
O breather of unbreathable, sword-sharp air,
How canst exist? How bear thyself, thou dry
And dreary sloth? WHat particle canst share
Of the only blessed life, the watery?
I sometimes see of ye an actual pair
Go by! linked fin by fin! most odiously.
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November Poem–Leigh Hunt–Song of Fairies Robbing an Orchard
After some fairly somber and serious poetry, it seemed time for a break, time for a bit of levity, even if Leigh Hunt didn’t intend for it to be amusing: Song of Fairies Robbing an Orchard Leigh Hunt We, the…
My favorite Leigh-Hunt, as nearly as I can remember it. Written on his having brought good news to an anxious Carlyle, and Jane’s (Mrs. Carlyle) having impulsively jumped up and embraced the old man:
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Springing from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief, who love to get
Pleasures in your net, put that in.
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that wealth and health have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add –
Jenny kissed me.