Poem of the Day: ‘Elegy to Miss Emily Kay’

The English press has traditionally been a lively venue, and never more lively than when readers write in. In Letters to the Editor, British correspondents instigate conversations on the creepage of such Americanisms as “cookie,” the question of what figures may appear with the Virgin Mary in an icon, or their own inability to follow the plot of an audiobook on CD (“The car player was set to ‘shuffle.’”). During the reign of George IV, however, magazine readers sometimes conversed by way of the comic poem. Today’s Poem of the Day offers an 1828 example of a form in which key words were replaced by a kind of phonetic code. The joke-eulogy poem, “Elegy to Miss Emily Kay,” by an anonymous author styled as “D.T. Fabula,” responds to a similar effort which had appeared in an earlier issue of the New Monthly Magazine, on the demise of a fictitious Ellen Gee of Kew (or “LN G of Q”) — offering a eulogy for her cousin, Emily Kay of Ewell (or “MLE K of UL”), with the pentameter quatrains’ abab rhymes providing clues to the letter code. A direct connection to 21st-century texting abbreviations is doubtful, but these 19th-century letters-as-sounds are at least an interesting case of parallel development. (A key to deciphering the poem may be found here. For some of the trickier elements, try reading line 8’s “XUVE” as “exuviae” [meaning “sheddings”], line 9’s “0” as “ought,” line 11’s “N” as “enlarge,” and line 26’s “:” as “colon” [= “coal on”].)Elegy to Miss Emily Kay (Cousin to Miss Ellen Gee of Kew), who Lately Died at Ewell, and was Buried in Essex by ‘D.T. Fabula, narratur’Sad nymphs of UL, U have much to cry for, Sweet MLE K U never more shall C! O SX maids! Come hither and VU, With tearful I this MT LEG. Without XS she did XL alway — Ah me! it truly vexes 1 2 C How soon so DR a creature may DK, And only leave behind XUVE. Whate’er 1 0 to do, she did discharge, So than an NME it might NDR: — Then Y an SA write? Then why N Or with my briny tears her BR BDU? When her Piano-40 she did press, Such heavenly sounds did MN8 that she Knowing her Q, soon 1 U 2 confess Her XLNC in an XTC. Her hair was soft as silk, not YRE, It gave no Q, nor yet 2P to view: She was not handsome; shall I tell U Y? U R to know her I was all SQ. L8 she was, and prattling like A J. O little MLE! did you 4C? The grave should soon MUU, cold as clay, And U should cease to be an N.TT! While taking T at Q with LN G, The MT grate she rose to put a : Her clothes caught fire — no I again shall C Poor MLE, who now is dead as Solon. O, LN G, at vain you set at 0 GR and reproach for suffering her 2 B Thus sacrificed — to JL you should be brought, And burnt U 0 2 B in FEG. Sweet MLE K into SX they bore, Taking good care her monument to Y10, And as her tomb was much 2 low B4, They lately brought fresh bricks the walls to I10. ___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘Elegy to Miss Emily Kay’

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