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“Well,” I thought, “this is odd.”

But we came pretty quick

To a sort of a quad

That was all of red brick,

And I says to the porter: “R. Browning: free passes and kindly look slick.”

But says he, dripping tears

In his check handkerchief,

“That symposium’s career’s

Been regrettably brief,

For it went all its pile upon crumpets and busted on gunpowder leaf!”

Then we tucked up the sleeves

Of our shirts (that were biled),

Which the reader perceives

That our feelings were riled,

And we went for that man till his mother had doubted the traits of her child.

Which emotions like these

Must be freely indulged

By a party who sees

A Society bulged

On a reef the existence of which its prospectus had never divulged.

But I ask: Do I dream?

Has it gone up the spout;

Are things what they seem,

Or is Sophists about?

Is our τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.

This parody on Bret Harte’s “Plain Language from Truthful James” was written at the time when the Browning Society at Keble College, Oxford, came to an end—apparently, according to these verses, because its funds had been exhausted in afternoon teas!