Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CLUBS, by THEODORE HOOK


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CLUBS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: If any man loves comfort and has little cash to buy it, he
Last Line: For clubs are what the londoners have clearly set their hearts upon.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hook, Theodor
Subject(s): Clubs (associations); London


IF any man loves comfort and has little cash to buy it, he
Should get into a crowded club—a most select society,—
While solitude and mutton-cutlets serve infelixuxor, he
May have his club, like Hercules, and revel there in luxury.

Yes, clubs knock taverns on the head. E'en Hatchett's can't demolish 'em;
Joy grieves to see their magnitude, and Long longs to abolish 'em.
The Inns are out. Hotels for single men scarce keep alive on it,
While none but houses that are in the family way thrive on it.

There's first the Athenæum Club; so wise, there's not a man of it
That has not sense enough for six—in fact, that is the plan of it.
The very waiters answer you with eloquence So-cratical,
And always place the knives and forks in order mathematical.

Then opposite the mental club you'll find the regimental one—
A meeting made of men of war, and yet a very gentle one.
If uniform good living please your palate, here's excess of it.
Especially at private dinners, when they make a mess of it.

E'en Isis has a house in town and Cam abandons her city;
The master now hangs out at the United University.
In common room she gave a rout (a novel freak to hit upon),
Where Masters gave the Mistresses of Arts no chairs to sit upon.

The Union Club is quite superb; its best apartment daily is
The lounge of lawyers, doctors, merchants, beaux, cum multis aliis.
At half-past six the joint concern for eighteen pence is given you,
Half-pints of port are sent in ketchup-bottles to enliven you.

The Travellers are in Pall Mall, and smoke cigars so cosily,
And dream they climb the highest Alps or rove the plains of Moselai.
The world for them has nothing new, they have explored all parts of it,
And now they are club-footed, and they sit and look at charts of it.

The Orientals, homeward-bound, now seek their club much sallower,
And while they eat green fat they find their own fat growing yellower.
Their soup is made more savoury, till bile to shadows dwindles 'em,
And neither Moore nor Savory with seidlitz draughts rekindles 'em.

Then there are clubs where persons parliamentary preponderate,
And clubs for men upon the turf (I wonder they ar'n't under it);
Clubs where the winning ways of sharper folks pervert the use of clubs,
Where knaves will make subscribers cry, "Egad! this is the deuce of clubs!"

For country squires the only club in London now is Boodle's, sirs,
The Crockford Club for playful men, the Alfred Club for noodles, sirs:
These are the stages which all men propose to play their parts upon,
For Clubs are what the Londoners have clearly set their hearts upon.





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