FORE!
BALLADE OF BAD VERSES
THERE be songs of surrender and sighing,
Of sentiment noble and just,
Of lovers deserted and dying,
Of languour and lilies and lust.
There be visions of when we are dust ;
There be sonnets and rondels enough
To break the terrestrial crust—
Lord, keep us from reading the stuff !
When Ajax, the lightning defying,
Was rude, his impertinent bust
Was shattered. The Editor, trying
To write (as an Editor must
Though his faculties rapidly rust)
Will speak in a manner that’s rough:
“You poets deserve to be trussed !
Lord, keep us from reading the stuff!”
_ My own little scheme of supplying
With fuel the realms of the cussed
Is to stoke all the fires with the flying
MSS blown that way by a gust
A