Poem by Owen Seaman

A New Blue Book

‘The world’s great age begins anew,’
Cold virtue’s weeds are cast;
Our heads are light, our tales are blue,
And things are moving fast;
And no one any longer quarrels
With anybody else’s morals.

A racier journal stamps its pages
With Beardsleys braver far;
A bolder Editor engages
To shame the morning star,
On London Nights, not near so chilly,
Sampling a shadier Piccadilly.

Satyr and Faun their late repose
Now burst like anything;
New Mænads, turning sprightlier toes,
Enjoy a jauntier fling;
With lustier lips old Pan shall play
Drain-pipes along the sewer’s way.

Priapus, wrongly left for dead,
Is dead no more than Pan;
Silenus rises from his bed
And hiccups like a man;
There’s something rather chaste (between us)
About Priapus and Silenus.

O cease to brew your Bodley pap
Whence all the spice is spent!
The splendour of its primal tap
Was gone when Aubrey went;
Behold that subtle Sphinx prepare
Fresh liquors fit to lift your hair.

Another Magazine shall rise
And paint the palsied town,
Of humbler hue, of simpler size,
And sold at half a crown;
Please note the pregnant brand––Savoy,
And don’t confuse with saveloy.

1. To Belgium in Exile
2. The Wayside Calvary
3. The Avengers
4. Ars Postera
5. Yet

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