A Few Verses [poem by Barcroft Boake]

[Editor: This poem by Barcroft Boake was published in Where the Dead Men Lie and Other Poems (1897).]

A Few Verses

With appropriate illustrations

1
Miss Jean I’ve commanded
My faltering Muse
To write you some verses:
She dare not refuse

2
It’s your birthday and what’s
More appropriate on it,
That I should sit down
And write you a sonnet

3
I’ve sat down and now
I don’t know what to say
Oh! I know “Many happy
Returns of the day

4
I must not pay compliments
More is the pity
I know you’d object to be
Told that you’re pretty

5
Shall I tell you you’re plain
No! my pen wouldn’t write it
Besides there’s your anger
I dare not excite it

6
Miss Jean do you know
That my poor feeble brain
I fear will succumb
To this terrible strain

7
You’ll be sorry – I know
Some day when you find
That writing to you
Drove me out of my mind

8
When you find (to use Scotch)
“I’ve a bee in my bonnet”
The horrid result of this
Broken-backed Sonnet

9
Miss Jean I fear these scanty lines
Your anger may provoke
Deal gently with me for I sign
Yours humbly B. H. B——

This reproduces, on a somewhat smaller scale, a pen-and-ink drawing by Boake in a Rosedale scrap-book. I fancy that the figures are imitated from some by a more skilful hand. — Ed.

Source:
Barcroft Boake, Where the Dead Men Lie and Other Poems, Sydney (NSW): Angus and Robertson, 1897, p. 175

Editor’s notes:
The poem “A Few Verses” appears on page 175 (in the “Memoirs”). These verses were written for Miss Jean McKeahnie, of Rosedale station (Adaminaby, NSW). The editor’s note at the end was written by A. G. Stephens.

B. H. B—— = Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake (1866-1892), known to some as Bartie; a surveyor, stockman, drover, writer, and poet; he was born in Balmain (Sydney, New South Wales) in 1866, and committed suicide at Long Bay (Middle Harbour, Sydney, NSW) in 1892
See: 1) “Barcroft H. Boake”, The Institute of Australian Culture
2) Cecil Hadgraft, “Barcroft Henry Boake (1866–1892)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
3) “Barcroft Boake (poet)”, Wikipedia

Ed. = an abbreviation of “Editor”

Muse = a source of artistic inspiration; a person, especially a woman, or a force personified as a woman, who is the source of inspiration for an artist (derived from the Muses of Greek and Roman mythology, who were said to provide inspiration for artists and writers)

[Editor: Added a closing double quotation mark after “bee in my bonnet”.]