Volume 10 — A RHYME FOR CHRISTMAS

If Browning only were here, This yule-ish time o' the year— This mule-ish time o' the year,— Stubbornly still refusing To add to the rhymes we've been using Since the first Christmas-glee (One might say) chantingly Rendered by rudest hinds Of the pelt-clad shepherding kinds Who didn't know Song from b- U-double-l's-foot!—Pah!— (Haply the old Egyptian ptah— Though I'd hardly wager a baw- Bee—or a bumble, for that— And that's flat!).... But the thing that I want to get at Is a rhyme for Christmas— Nay! nay! nay! nay! not isthmus— The t- and the h- sounds covertly are Gnawing the nice auracular Senses until one may hear them gnar— And the terminal, too, for mas, is mus, So that will not do for us. Try for it—sigh for it—cry for it—die for it! O but if Browning were here to apply for it, He'd rhyme you Christmas— He'd make a mist pass Over—something o' ruther— Or find you the rhyme's very brother In lovers that kissed fast To baffle the moon,—as he'd lose the t-final In fas-t as it blended with to (mark the spinal Elision—tip-clipt as exquisitely nicely And hyper-exactingly sliced to precisely The extremest technical need): Or he'd twist glass, Or he'd have a kissed lass, Or shake neath our noses some great giant fist-mass— No matter! If Robert were here, he could do it, Though it took us till Christmas next year to see through it.