I Do Not Love Thee, Dr Fell -- Tom Brown

Following up yesterday's "hate rhyme" with a rhyme of, well, mild dislike, I
suppose:

(Poem #877) I Do Not Love Thee, Dr Fell I do not love thee, Dr Fell, The reason why I cannot tell; But this I know, and know full well, I do not love thee, Dr Fell. -- Tom Brown

Written circa 1680.

Tradition has it that Brown, while a student at Christ Church, got into some
sort of trouble and was taken to the dean, Dr John Fell.  Brown was set to
be sent down from Oxford, but Dr. Fell decided to waive the expulsion if
Brown could translate, extempore, a Martial epigram. The above poem is the
result; unfortunately, history does not record whether or not Brown's
creativity was sufficient to stay the dean's wrath.

The original Martial epigram follows:

 Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
 Hoc tantum posso dicere, non amo te.
        -- Martial

Brown's translation is an excellent one, succinct and faithful to the
original (which reads something like this in English: "I don't like you,
Sabidius, and I can't say why; all I can say is I don't like you"). More to
the point, it's uncannily catchy; what ought by rights to be a snatch of
doggerel has achieved immortality in a thousand and one compilations of
quotable quotes. I wish I knew how he did it...

thomas.

[Minstrels Links]

Poem #876, I Wish My Tongue were a Quiver -- Louis McKay
Poem #856, Epigram -- Martial

[Biographies]

John Fell: 1625-86, English clergyman. He was dean of Christ Church, Oxford,
and bishop of Oxford. While at Oxford, he initiated an extensive building
program and promoted the development of the Oxford Univ. Press. His chief
literary work was his critical edition (1682) of St. Cyprian. He is probably
best remembered today as the subject of Tom Brown's jingle "I do not love
thee, Dr. Fell, The reason why I cannot tell; But this alone I know full
well, I do not love thee, Dr. Fell."
        -- The Columbia Encyclopaedia, at www.bartleby.com

Martial: See the epigram above.

Tom Brown: Couldn't find anything, sorry.

I Bended Unto Me a Bough of May -- Tom Brown

(Poem #527) I Bended Unto Me a Bough of May I bended unto me a bough of May, That I might see and smell: It bore it in a sort of way, It bore it very well. But, when I let it backward sway, Then it were hard to tell With what a toss, with what a swing, The dainty thing Resumed its proper level, And sent me to the devil. I know it did--you doubt it? I turned, and saw them whispering about it. -- Tom Brown

A somewhat old-fashioned but delightfully whimsical poem. This sort of
gentle whimsy is hard to get right - it requires a very light touch, or it
ends up looking self-conscious and forced. Brown, needless to say, has done
a beautiful job on today's poem - both the tone of voice and the imagery are
flawless.

Construction:

In keeping with the content, somewhat idiosyncratic. I have yet to decide
whether this does anything to enhance the poem :)

Biography and Assessment:

Thomas Edward Brown, 1830-1897

[...]

He published several volumes of verse, the first being ' Betsy Lee, and
other Poems," in 1881,and the whole were collected and published in one
volume shortly after his death on a visit to Clifton. Later, his letters to
a number of friends were also collected and published. Although a great
quantity of his verse is in the Manx dialect, he is increasingly being
recognised as taking high rank among the masters of English poetic
literature.

Time however has not dealt well with T.E.Brown - although highly regarded,
especially on the Island, at the turn of the Century, he is now little read.
Samuel Norris accounts for this by Brown's use of the Anglo-Manx Dialect and
his rather late start as a Poet. There was always some undercurrent of
suspicion by the native Manx that he was 'mocking' them in some way.

        -- http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/manx/people/writers/teb.htm

Note:

Brown's most famous work is perhaps 'My Garden', whose opening line,
"A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!", was responsible for adding a word
to the language. From the OED:

  Godwottery go(hook)dwo(hook).t<e>ri. Also with lower-case initial. [f; God
  wot (cf. god sb. 10) in the line `A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!'
  in T. E. Brown's poem My Garden (1876) + -ery. ] An affected or
  over-elaborate style of gardening or attitude towards gardens (see
  quots.); also (in quot. 1939), archaic language.

Links:

There's a more complete biography at
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/manx/fulltext/worthies/p108.htm

'My Garden': [broken link] http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems/brown20.html#1

-martin