When nox gives way to lux of morning-- Albam terram much adorning,-- Up they jump to see the varmen, Of the which this is the carmen. Lo! possum est resurrectum! Ecce pueri dejectum. Ne relinquit track behind him, Et the pueri never find him. Cruel possum! bestia vilest, How the pueros thou beguilest; Pueri think non plus of Cæsar, Go ad Orcum, Shalmaneser, Take your laurels, cum the honour, Since ista possum is a goner!"
The following "Society Verses" of Mortimer Collins are given here by way of introducing an imitation of them in macaronic verse:
"Lady, very fair are you, And your eyes are very blue, And your nose; And your brow is like the snow; And the various things you know Goodness knows. And the rose-flush on your cheek, And your Algebra and Greek Perfect are; And that loving lustrous eye Recognises in the sky Every star. You have pouting, piquant lips, You can doubtless an eclipse Calculate; But for your cerulean hue, I had certainly from you Met my fate. If by an arrangement dual I were Adams mixed with Whewell, The same day I, as wooer, perhaps may come To so sweet an Artium Magistra."
"Lady! formosissima tu! Cæruleis oculis have you, Ditto nose! Et vous n'avez pas une faute-- And that you are going to vote, Goodness knows!
And the roseus on your cheek, And your Algebra and Greek, Are parfait! And your jactus oculi Knows each star that shines in the Milky Way!
You have pouting, piquant lips, Sans doute vous pouvez an eclipse Calculate! Ne cærulum colorantur, I should have in you, instanter, Met my fate!
Si, by some arrangement dual, I at once were Kant and Whewell; It would pay-- Procus noti then to come To so sweet an Artium Magistra!
Or, Jewel of Consistency, Si possem clear-starch, cookere, Votre learning Might the leges proscribere-- Do the pro patria mori, I, the churning!"
Here are a few juvenile specimens, the first being a little-known old nursery ballad:
"I had four brothers over the sea, Perrimerri dictum, Domine: And each one sent a present to me; Partum quartum, peredecentum, Perrimerri dictum, Domine.
The first sent a cherry without any stone; Perrimerri dictum, Domine: The second a chicken without any bone, Partum quartum, peredecentum, Perrimerri dictum, Domine.