A PARODY,

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 152, 1 July 1869, Page 2

A PARODY,

Respectfully Dedicated to Oswald Curtis, Esq. We take the following effusion of some poetical genius from the Wellington Evening Post, of 21st instant. We confess that we are at a loss to detect the wit,

or even the* meaning, of the lines, but possibly some of pur readers may be gifted with more powerful perceptive faculties than ourselves — to their perusal- we commend this talented little poem, and we would ask them to forward to us at their earliest opportunity their opinion of it. We should also be glad to know in- accordance with what rule of Prosody the letter "e" at the end of the word "the" in . the ante-penultimate line, has been omitted. Such a liberty recalls, forcibly to our mind an event in our school, life, when, in taking up to the master some carelessly got-up Latin verses, we were called to account for a false quantity that appeared in our exercise. "Poetical liceuse" was the auswer with which, with schoolboy-like impudence, we. endeavored to excuse ourselves. The argumentum ad hominem was at once applied, and a knock-me-down box on the t ear convinced us that it was only great poets who could err with impunity. The moral of this little reminiscence of our youth we leave to the gifted author of the following lines: — "He should not have been at all surprised if the hon. member for Oatnaru had turned to the Treasury benches, and, in the words of an old political squib (of the days of Canning, he believed) had demanded of Ministers, ' Who fill'd the butchers 5 shops with big blue flies?' " — Speech of Mr. Curtis on the Want of Confidence Motion. Who cause the gorge of honest men to rise? Who're to the body politic, blue flies? Who, when the Maories did their bloody work — Confound the men who met such facts with quirk — Who, when the people, 'ground by taxes, groan'd, Held all such things, if ills at all, aton'd, If place, 'gainst blood and treasure basely chaffer'd, Might still be held by th' Ministry of Stafford? Who, but the men who give to fact defiance, The vap'ring, prating dupes of Self-reliance?