Harry Graham (poet)

He was a successful journalist and later, after distinguished military service, a leading lyricist for operettas and musical comedies, but he is now best remembered as a writer of humorous verse in a style of grotesquerie and black humour.

In 1906, he became a full-time writer, as a journalist and author of light verse, popular fiction and history, including A Group of Scottish Women (1908).

[2] Graham's other light verse exhibited a delight in language, and not only his native one,[8] as in his response to the news that Wilhelm II, visiting Brussels, spoke at length with Baron de Haulleville, Director of the Congo Museum, in French, German and English: the poem began:

Guten Morgen, mon ami!Heute ist es schönes Wetter!Charmé de vous voir ici!Never saw you looking better!

"Graham's pleasure in word-play is illustrated in his poem on "Poetical Economy": When I’ve a syllable de trop, I cut it off, without apol.

[10]Some of the Ruthless Rhymes involved Little Willie, a poetic personification of youthful mischief, whose gruesome acts of violence with indifferent or cheerfully inappropriate responses inspired readers to compose similar verses.

His best known lyrics were "You are my heart's delight", his English version of "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz", from The Land of Smiles, composed by Franz Lehár (and made famous by the popular tenor Richard Tauber), and "Goodbye", from his English adaptation of The White Horse Inn[2] (originally "Adieu, mein kleiner Gardeoffizier" from Robert Stolz's operetta Die lustigen Weiber von Wien, a song which later achieved great popularity as sung by Josef Locke).