"Then, pot or glass, why label it '_With care?'_
Or why your Sheepskin with my Gourd compare?
Lo! here the Bar and I the only Judge:--
O Dog that bit me, I exact an hair!"
No versifier of the present day lends himself so readily to parody as
Mr. Kipling. His "Story of Ung" is an excellent satire on certain
methods of contemporary literature:--
"Once on a glittering icefield, ages and ages ago,
Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of snow.
Fashioned the form of a tribesman; gaily he whistled and sung,
Working the snow with his fingers, '_Read ye the story of Ung!_'
* * * * *
And the father of Ung gave answer, that was old and wise in the craft,
Maker of pictures aforetime, he leaned on his lance and laughed:
'If they could see as thou seest they would do as thou hast done,
And each man would make him a picture, and--what would become
of my son?'"
So far Mr. Kipling. A parodist writing in _Truth_ applies the same
"criticism of life" to commercial production:--
THE STORY OF BUNG.
Once, ere the glittering icefields paid us a tribute of gold,
Bung, the son of a brewer, heir to a fortune untold--
Vast was his knowledge of brewing--gaily began his career.
Whispered the voice of ambition, "Perhaps they will make thee a peer.
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