I was discussing "twee" with a friend and remembered a nifty poem I read about thirty-five years ago. Of course I had to go find it, and it's as good as I recall, so I'll share it here.
How to Treat Elves
by Morris BishopI met an elf-man in the woods,
the wee-est little elf!
Sitting under a mushroom tall—
'twas taller than himself."How do you do, little elf," I said,
"and what do you do all day?"
"I dance 'n fwolic about," said he,
"'n scuttle about and play;"I s'prise the butterflies, 'n when
a katydid I see,
'Katy didn't!' I say, and he
says 'Katy did!' to me!"I hide behind my mushroom stalk
when Mister Mole comes froo,
'n only jus' to fwighten him
I jump out 'n say, 'Boo!'"'N then I swing on a cobweb swing,
up in the air so high,
'N the cwickets chirp just to hear me sing,
'Upsy-daisy-die!'"'N then I play with the baby chicks,
I call them, chick chick chick!
'N what do you think of that?" said he.
I said, "It makes me sick.""It gives me sharp and shooting pains
to listen to such drool."
I lifted up my foot, and squashed
the God damn little fool. *
The poem first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post for 3 April 1926 (it was reprinted in an anthology edited by Thomas L. Masson, Laughs: A Sovereign
Remedy for Boredom, published in November 1926). That makes it nearly contemporary with Lord Dunsany's poem, "Ode to a Dublin Critic," apparently first published in Fifty Poems (1929). Here are the first two stanzas (of five):
And lesser journalists have said,
Of course earlier in the same decade, J.R.R. Tolkien was writing of 'Tinfang Warble" in a fairy poem first published in 1927. It is a conception Tolkien would (thankfully) abandon. Here are the first eight lines.
Tinfang Warble
O the hoot! O the hoot!How he trillups on his flute!O the hoot of Tinfang Warble!
Dancing all alone,hopping on a stone,Flitting like a fan,In the twilight on the lawn,And his name is Tinfang Warble!
* The text of "How to Treat Elves" is that given in Bishop's collection Spilt Milk (1942). The poem also appears in Bishop's earlier collection Paramount Poems (1929), but I have not seen that appearance.
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