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The Talented Man -- Winthrop Mackworth Praed

       
(Poem #1868) The Talented Man
 Dear Alice! you'll laugh when you know it, --
     Last week, at the Duchess's ball,
 I danced with the clever new poet, --
     You've heard of him, -- Tully St. Paul.
 Miss Jonquil was perfectly frantic;
     I wish you had seen Lady Anne!
 It really was very romantic,
     He *is* such a talanted man!

 He came up from Brazenose College,
     Just caught, as they call it, this spring;
 And his head, love, is stuffed full of knowledge
     Of every conceivable thing.
 Of science and logic he chatters,
     As fine and as fast as he can;
 Though I am no judge of such matters,
     I'm sure he's a talented man.

 His stories and jests are delightful; --
     Not stories or jests, dear, for you;
 The jests are exceedingly spiteful,
     The stories not always *quite* true.
 Perhaps to be kind and veracious
     May do pretty well at Lausanne;
 But it never would answer, -- good gracious!
     Chez nous -- in a talented man.

 He sneers, -- how my Alice would scold him! --
     At the bliss of a sigh or a tear;
 He laughed -- only think! -- when I told him
     How we cried o'er Trevelyan last year;
 I vow I was quite in a passion;
     I broke all the sticks of my fan;
 But sentiment's quite out of fashion,
     It seems, in a talented man.

 Lady Bab, who is terribly moral,
     Has told me that Tully is vain,
 And apt -- which is silly -- to quarrel,
     And fond -- which is sad -- of champagne.
 I listened, and doubted, dear Alice,
     For I saw, when my Lady began,
 It was only the Dowager's malice; --
     She *does* hate a talented man!

 He's hideous, I own it. But fame, love,
     Is all that these eyes can adore;
 He's lame, -- but Lord Byron was lame, love,
     And dumpy, -- but so is Tom Moore.
 Then his voice, -- *such* a voice! my sweet creature,
     It's like your Aunt Lucy's toucan:
 But oh! what's a tone or a feature,
     When once one's a talented man?

 My mother, you know, all the season,
     Has talked of Sir Geoffrey's estate;
 And truly, to do the fool reason,
     He *has* been less horrid of late.
 But today, when we drive in the carriage,
     I'll tell her to lay down her plan; --
 If ever I venture on marriage,
     It must be a talented man!

 P.S. -- I have found, on reflection,
     One fault in my friend, -- entre nous;
 Without it, he'd just be perfection; --
     Poor fellow, he has not a sou!
 And so, when he comes in September
     To shoot with my uncle, Sir Dan,
 I've promised mamma to remember
     He's only a talented man!
-- Winthrop Mackworth Praed
This is an unexpectedly funny poem - I started off smiling, but had to laugh
out loud before I was done. It's hard to write a humorous poem where the
intent is that the reader laugh at the narrator; it's even harder when the
main element of the poem's humour is that indefinable quality, "tone of
voice". But Praed not only manages to thread the poem through with a
delightful vein of sly humour, he makes the whole thing look wonderfully
effortless - indeed, I was almost tempted to dismiss this as a funny but
essentially trivial poem, until I started to think about just how chancy a
thing humour can be. It's still a trivial poem, mind you, but it's also an
impressive one.

That humour of this sort is indeed tricky to handle is unfortunately
revealed with a jar in the last verse, which has a definite "I have no idea
how to end this" feel to it. The supplied punchline is superficially funny,
but it is a tired, cliched sort of humour, and one inconsistent in tone with
the rest of the poem. Happily, it doesn't detract from the rest of the poem -
there is a slight sense of letdown at the end, but, at least for me, the
lingering impression is entirely positive.

martin

Wikipedia entry:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winthrop_Mackworth_Praed
  [Praed seems to have led an interesting and active life]

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