They say — don’t they? — that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In parody, imitation is elevated to the level of an art, whose aim is not to flatter as much as it is to poke fun. Parodia is an ancient comic art. In his “Poetics,” Aristotle notes the example of Hegemon of Thasos, who altered the words of well-known poems to make them ridiculous, which is the basic principle of the career of “Weird Al” Yankovic. The oldest jokes, it turns out, are ever new.

Of course, if we’re going to laugh at the joke, we first have to get the joke, which means that we have to know the original on which the parody riffs. If the contemporary poet Wendy Cope’s “Waste Land Limericks” are funny, that’s only because we’ve read T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” (a section of which appeared as the Poem of the Day on April 14). The comic punch of Mr. Yankovic’s “I Think I’m a Clone Now” depends entirely on his audience’s familiarity with the oeuvre of Tommy James and the Shondells, as well as an artist named Tiffany, who covered their most famous song without (intentionally) making a joke of it. 

But the corollary to all this is that the parodists have to be good. That is, they have to be astute observers of the original, as well as gifted mimics, to capture whatever its signature features happen to be. The effort of attention, the well-tuned ear: We see them on display in today’s Poem of the Day, marking the May birthday of its author, G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936). Are these not the marks of the best kind of flatterer? The one who takes notice, even if it is to make fun? 

Yes, to appreciate the joke, we need to have read Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as fortunately Sun readers will have done. We have to have read Walt Whitman, whose “I Hear America Singing” appeared recently in this space. But for the joke to land, Chesterton has to have done those poets the honor of knowing them, intimately enough to mimic their voices. We may hope that in the literary afterlife, they receive the joke as a compliment and are laughing with the rest of us. 

Variations of an Air 
by G.K. Chesterton

Old King Cole 
Was a merry old soul 
And a merry old soul was he 
He called for his pipe 
and he called for his bowl 
and he called for his fiddlers three

after Lord Tennyson:

Cole, that unwearied prince of Colchester, 
Growing more gay with age and with long days 
Deeper in laughter and desire of life 
As that Virginian climber on our walls 
Flames scarlet with the fading of the year; 
Called for his wassail and that other weed 
Virginian also, from the western woods 
Where English Raleigh checked the boast of Spain, 
And lighting joy with joy, and piling up 
Pleasure as crown for pleasure, bade me bring 
Those three, the minstrels whose emblazoned coats 
Shone with the oyster-shells of Colchester; 
And these three played, and playing grew more fain 
Of mirth and music; till the heathen came 
And the King slept beside the northern sea.

after W.B. Yeats:

Of an old King in a story 
From the grey sea-folk I have heard 
Whose heart was no more broken 
Than the wings of a bird.

As soon as the moon was silver 
And the thin stars began, 
He took his pipe and his tankard, 
Like an old peasant man. 

And three tall shadows were with him 
And came at his command; 
And played before him for ever 
The fiddles of fairyland. 

And he died in the young summer 
Of the world’s desire; 
Before our hearts were broken 
Like sticks in a fire.

after Walt Whitman:

Me clairvoyant, 
Me conscious of you, old camarado, 
Needing no telescope, lorgnette, field-glass, opera-glass, myopic pince-nez, 
Me piercing two thousand years with eye naked and not ashamed; 
The crown cannot hide you from me, 
Musty old feudal-heraldic trappings cannot hide you from me, 
I perceive that you drink. 
(I am drinking with you. I am as drunk as you are.) 
I see you are inhaling tobacco, puffing, smoking, spitting 
(I do not object to your spitting), 
You prophetic of American largeness, 
You anticipating the broad masculine manners of these States; 
I see in you also there are movements, tremors, tears, desire for the melodious, 
I salute your three violinists, endlessly making vibrations, 
Rigid, relentless, capable of going on for ever; 
They play my accompaniment; but I shall take no notice of any accompaniment; 
I myself am a complete orchestra. 
So long. 

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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 are drawn from the deep traditions of English verse: the great work of the past and the living poets who keep those traditions alive. The goal is always to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.