Bad Poetry and Good Art

I'm being a little bit unfair here, as the poem is talking about red hair being fashionable. It's from the publication Punch, Volumes 52-53, 1867. It's throwaway content, so I shouldn't be judging it by too high a standard ..but still, it's bad.

Fashionable Change Of Hair

ALL you, above whose heads have rolled

Some years of observation

In female fashions must behold

A wondrous alteration

Red hair, in scorn, our bygone age

Called "carrots," and did sneeze on;

But now it has become the rage,

And carrots are in season.

To brew a diabolic drench

When hags of old thought proper,

"Three ounces of a red-haired wench"

They threw into their copper.

For then, indeed, red hair was thought

A fault as rank as treason;

But now it is adored and sought;

For carrots are in season.

A dark peruke* then graced the head

Of rufous damsel, shaven,

Or else she turned her tresses red,

By dyeing them, to raven.

But raven now has had its day,

And womankind agrees on

Transmuting hair the other way;

Since carrots are in season.

To Nature is a maiden fair

For sable locks beholden?

She bleaches first, then stains, her hair,

And makes the black all golden.

And can that artificial hue

Be put, mankind to please, on?

Apparently with no such view;

But carrots are in season.

Of native gold beneath a thatch

Dwell many charming creatures

But counterfeit no art can match

With heterogeneous features.

The way of Woman is a way

Inscrutable by reason:

And therefore all that we can say

Is, "Carrots are in season."

Ye girls who pretty carrots boast,

(Well may you who possess them!)

Of your fine carrots make the most,

And mind you nicely dress them,

Regardless of the wretched pun

Which geese may make, with ease, on

Hair soup and Crecy both in one,

Now carrots are in season.

(*peruke means wig - another word I had to look up.)

I'm sorry for inflicting that on an audience. If you read the entire thing, well done. Your reward is some beautiful images that are much easier to imbibe. Both are from the English artist Evelyn De Morgan (1855 - 1919).

(Port After Stormy Seas)

(detail)

(The Prisoner)

(detail)

You are now free to go.