Rhymes a la Mode

Name: Rhymes a la Mode
Author: Andrew Lang

by Andrew Lang

Pages: about 40
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 44 min at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 24 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

Each in the self-same field we glean The field of the Samosatene, Each something takes and something leaves And this must choose, and that forego In Lucian’s visionary sheaves, To twine a modern posy so; But all any gleanings, truth to tell, Are mixed with mournful asphodel, While yours are wreathed with poppies red, With flowers that Helen’s feet have kissed, With leaves of vine that garlanded The Syrian Pantagruelist, The sage who laughed the world away, Who mocked at Gods, and men, and care, More sweet of voice than Rabelais, And lighter-hearted than Voltaire.
THE jaded light of late July Shone yellow down the dusty Strand, The anxious people bustled by, Policeman, Pressman, you and I, And thieves, and judges of the land.
So swift they strode they had not time To mark the humours of the Town, But I, that mused an idle rhyme, Looked here and there, and up and down, And many a rapid cart I spied That drew, as fast as ponies can, The Newspapers of either side, These joys of every Englishman!
The Standard here, the Echo there, And cultured ev’ning papers fair, With din and fuss and shout and blare Through all the eager land they bare, The rumours of our little span.
’Midst these, but ah, more slow of speed, A biggish box of sanguine hue Was tugged on a velocipede, And in and out the crowd, and through, An earnest stripling urged it well Perched on a cranky tricycle!
A seedy tricycle he rode, Perchance some three miles in the hour, But, on the big red box that glowed Behind him, was a name of Power, JUSTICE, (I read it e’er I wist,) The Organ of the Socialist!
The paper carts fled fleetly by And vanished up the roaring Strand, And eager purchasers drew nigh Each with his penny in his hand, But Justice, scarce more fleet than I, Began to permeate the land, And dark, methinks, the twilight fell, Or ever Justice reached Pall Mall.

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Rhymes a la Mode

From the opening

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