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The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, October 1913

Eich and I

page 30

Eich and I.

Our local versifier, Eich, has a rhyme for every place on earth. Eich and I have fallen out, so I am revealing to you the secret how he obtained strange and wondrous deeds to obtain his rhymes and render them apt.

In the lotus-eating languor of the village of Runanga
'Twas the Devil came and whispered in our ear,
"Go and roam the world together go and rhyme the world together
For as life is yours for harvest, oh, why tarry longer here ?"
So we rambled in the raupo that bestrews the shores of Taupo,
Where the kowhai flushes golden on the hill
And we thought of Tommy Wilford 'mid the spotless snows of Milford,
And we chorussed "Here we are now" at Te Anau, calm and still.
We admired the pink Auroras from the purple-tipped Kaikouras
As we motored down Pelorus sang a chorus in our mirth.
Be the country bleak or showery, be it flowery, be it kauri.
We can rhyme your silly Maori to the ends of all the earth.

Oh, he wooed the giddy charmer on the slopes of Fusijama
(Amaryllis in corillas still is—sadly reminiscent).
And he pinked the tall flamingo in the swamps of San Domingo
With a pistol, nabbed at Bristol,—where the Crystal—Palace isn't.
Then he danced a wild fandango on the banks of the Kubango
(For he always spoke and acted as the rhyme decreed he should)
And he plonked the solar plexus of a burly bloke from Texas
Who had ventured to insinuate it wasn't very good.
page 31 Thought the torrid heat was horrid, but that Florida was horrider,
But deemed the tribal usages extremely civilised,
For the natives of Bahamas had been known to wear pyjamas,
And Guianas smoked Havanas,—and with manners you'd have prized!
Said a Yank from Montreal: "I'll pot you with a staggerer:
Go, try to rhyme our famous falls!" . . . I stood beneath Niagara
Arrayed in swagger overalls,—but Eich was slightly swaggerer!

Oh, he strolled with Harry Harris through the streets of Parree (Paris),
(Got you that time! Do your darn'dest, but the rhyme's a moral cert !)
And he revelled in Pindarics on "The Balearic Barracks";
Went to hell fast, down in Belfast, where the girls are swate and pert.
In the languor soporific of Pacific, beatific,
His rhyming was prolific,—he was happy he was born
But he went an utter flutter in the gin shops of Calcutta,
Where I hauled him from the gutter in the flush of early morn.

Then he tried to cut a few toes from the feet of the Basutos!
And improperly suggested I commit felo de se
With a special, strung and new rope, to complete his rhyme for Europe!
So it got beyond all bearing,—I deserted suddenly.
He ejaculated "Oh, by—Jove, you've given me the Go-bi!"
And that is how we parted, Eich an' me.
I left him very busy with his Lizzy at Brindisi,
Writing stanzas—real bonanzas—to her lovability.

F.H.—J.

[We set the office boy to search for some of the names mentioned above, but he came to us in tears, saying many were not on the map. Mr. F. P. Wilson also was at a loss.—Ed. Spike.]