I was at the library today, doing research for my intellectual property essay on copyright, and I was reading through the book The Copywrights: Intellectual Property and the Literary Imagination by Paul K. Saint-Amour. One of the chapters mentioned a type of poetry work I’ve never heard of before, called a Cento, which is basically taking verses of existing poetry and putting them together to create a new one. Apparently, this has been around for ages, and it demonstrates how this is an example of how copying and remixing to form new works has been around for years.

Anyway, the book quotes a particular cento that I found to be positively charming (if not a bit frivolous). It is quoted from another book called Gleanings from the Harvest-Fields of Literature A Melange of Excerpta, Curious, Humorous, and Instructive by C. C. Bombaugh, first published in 1870 (this book sounds quite interesting, I must try to find a copy) of an anonymous cento involving a rather dramatic (albeit a bit confusing) retelling of a love story. I’ve taken the liberty of researching for the author of each line to their original works, and linking to them when I could find a source (this took much longer than expected).
 

Mosaic Poetry
I only knew she came and went Lowell
Like troutlets in a pool; Hood
She was a phantom of delight, Wordsworth
And I was like a fool.

Eastman
 
“One kiss, dear maid,” I said and sighed, Coleridge
“Out of those lips unshorn.” Longfellow
She shook her ringlets round her head, Stoddard
And laughed in merry scorn. Tennyson
 
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky Tennyson
You hear them, oh my heart? Alice Carey1
‘Tis twelve at night by the castle clock, Coleridge
Beloved, we must part! Alice Carey
 
“Come back! Come back!” she cried in grief Campbell
“My eyes are dim with tears - Bayard Taylor
How shall I live through all the days, Mrs. Osgood
All through a hundred years?” TS Perry
 
‘Twas in the prime of the summer time, Hood
She blessed me with her hand; Hoyt
We strayed together, deeply blest, Mrs. Edwards
Into the Dreaming Land. Cornwall
 
The laughing bridal roses blow, Patmore
To dress her dark brown hair; Bayard Taylor
No maiden may with her compare, Brailsford
Most beautiful, most rare! Read
 
I clasped it on her sweet cold hand, Browning2
The precious golden link; Smith
I calmed her fears, and she was calm, Coleridge
“Drink, pretty creature, drink!” Wordsworth
 
And so I won my Genevieve, Coleridge
And walked in Paradise; Hervey3
The fairest thing that ever grew Wordsworth4
Atween me and the skies. Osgood
 

1 Spelt “Alice Cary” in modern days.
2 Not too sure on this one, lots of Brownings who write literary works and none I found that exactly match the line.
3 Maybe a miscredit? I couldn’t find anyone by the name of “Hervey” having written that line, but Aldrich did use that line in his poem written around that time.
4 The line that Wordsworth uses is actually “The sweetest thing that ever grew”.

I’m no English major but… is it just me or does the content of the poem refer to the (presumably male) protagonist successfully wooing a lady he fancied with… alcohol?