Loading AI tools
Charles Stuart Calverley (December 22, 1831 – February 17, 1884) was an English poet. He was the literary father of what has been called "the university school of humour".
- Now the "rosy morn appearing"
Floods with light the dazzled heaven;
And the schoolboy groans on hearing
That eternal clock strike seven:-
Now the waggoner is driving
Towards the fields his clattering wain;
Now the bluebottle, reviving,
Buzzes down his native pane.- Ode - "On a Distant Prospect" of Making a Fortune, from Verses and Translations (1862).
- White is the wold, and ghostly
The dank and leafless trees;
And 'M's and 'N's are mostly
Pronounced like 'B's and 'D's:
'Neath bleak sheds, ice-encrusted,
The sheep stands, mute and stolid:
And ducks find out, disgusted,
That all the ponds are solid.- Dirge, from Verses and Translations (1862).
- O Beer! O Hodgson, Guinness, Allsop, Bass!
Names that should be on every infant's tongue!
Shall days and months and years and centuries pass,
And still your merits be unrecked, unsung?
Oh! I have gazed into my foaming glass,
And wished that lyre could yet again be strung
Which once rang prophet-like through Greece, and taught her
Misguided sons that "the best drink was water."- Beer, from Verses and Translations (1862).
- I have a liking old
For thee, though manifold
Stories, I know, are told
Not to thy credit;
How one (or two at most)
Drops make a cat a ghost—
Useless, except to roast—
Doctors have said it:How they who use fusees
All grow by slow degrees
Brainless as chimpanzees,
Meagre as lizards;
Go mad, and beat their wives;
Plunge (after shocking lives)
Razors and carving knives
Into their gizzards.- Ode to Tobacco.
- I sit alone at present, dreaming darkly of a Dun.
- In the Gloaming; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
- I can not sing the old songs now!
It is not that I deem them low;
’T is that I can’t remember how
They go.- Changed; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
- O my own, my beautiful, my blue-eyed!
To be young once more and bite my thumb
At the world and all its cares with you, I’d
Give no inconsiderable sum.- First Love; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
- The farmer’s daughter hath soft brown hair
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And I met with a ballad, I can’t say where,
That wholly consisted of lines like these.- Ballad; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
- ’T was ever thus from childhood’s hour!
My fondest hopes would not decay:
I never loved a tree or flower
Which was the first to fade away.- Disaster; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare:
- Oh, ever thus, from childhood’s hour,
I ’ve seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower
But ’t was the first to fade away.
- Thomas Moore, The Fire Worshippers, p. 26.
- Oh, ever thus, from childhood’s hour,
- Disaster; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare:
- Forever; ’t is a single word!
Our rude forefathers deemed it two:
Can you imagine so absurd
A view?- Forever; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Wikiwand in your browser!
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.
