It’s “Bad Poetry Day,” a time to celebrate the very best of bad doggerel. I have to admit that I find a guilty pleasure in really bad poetry, particularly on mortuary subjects. Here are a few favorites.
THE UNION FOREVER
It seems that people differ
On the subject, very grave,
Of how to tend their bodies
When they’ve flunked their last close shave.
But as far as I’m affected
When I go to meet my Maker,
I’ll be happy and contented
With a union undertaker.
Some people speak of burning
So they’ll beat the Devil to it—
While others hold that later
They may need themselves and rue it;
But as far as I’m affected
When I go to meet my Maker,
I’ll be happy and contented
With a union undertaker.
Some people want a Parson,
While some others want a Priest.
Some players want no gallery,
While others want a feast—
But as far as I’m affected
When I go to meet my Maker,
I’ll be happy and contented
With a union undertaker.
I want a union label
On the lapel of my shroud;
I want the coffin union-made,
And no scabs in the crowd.
I want my union card to show
Saint Peter’s ticket taker
That I was sent to Glory
By a union undertaker.
St. Louis [MO] Post-Dispatch 12 April 1919: p. 10
This one just rollicks along when read aloud:
THE UNIQUE HOTEL.
(See Murray’s Scotland,” page 169).
My friends and my relatives know very well
I yearn for the novel and striking—
Just now there’s the strangest north-country hotel
Evoking my rapturous liking.
The notice (in language sufficiently terse)
Recording its varied resources,
Concludes with, “good stables. Superior hearse,
With suitable feathers and horses!”
The wines may be bad and civility nil,
The furniture aged and fluffy,
Wax candles appear twice-a-day in the bill,
And all may be gloomy and stuffy.
Such minor discomforts let cavillers curse;—
Eclipsing the painfullest courses,
You’ve but to recall that “superior hearse,
With suitable feathers and horses.”
Suppose, as by rail you’re approaching the spot,
Your train will persist in colliding
Along with another and “getting it hot,”
Or smashing to bits in a siding;
Though sadly your friends may regard your reverse,
While shedding the tear it enforces,
At least they can get a “superior hearse,
With suitable feathers and horses.”
Suppose you are spending a holiday there
With hopes of lost vigour regaining
By climbing up mountains and breathing the air,
And find it incessantly raining;
As daily the weather grows dismally worse,
And hope from your bosom divorces,
You’ll guess why they keep a “superior hearse,
With suitable feathers and horses.”
Suppose, when they give you your “little account,”
You go and you think you’ve detected
A glaring extortion, because the amount
Exceeds what you might have expected.
You’ll find it — suppose you decline to disburse,
And your fist your decision endorses—
Convenient to have that “superior hearse
With suitable feathers and horses.”
Fun, T. Moffitt 20 August 1879: p 74
See also “The Mourner A-La-Mode” over at Mrs Daffodil Digresses.
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead and on Twitter @hauntedohiobook. And visit her newest blog The Victorian Book of the Dead.
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