Page 44 - Poetry-Books

A Mad Poet

Ye fledgling bards, that fain on downy wing
Would try with tougher quills to soar and sing!
Young larks, on whom the cage-door ne’er has slammed,
To lock you in, “all silent and all damned!”*

Those poets counted great in other days,
If writing now, would have to mend their ways.
They thought too much, and, on their thinking bent,
With plain heroic couplets were content.

But woe to him who rashly now repeats
The measure of a Goldsmith or a Keats!
One form, and only one, could serve him worse
Let no live poet venture on blank verse.

The roundel—the Provençal roundel— try,
That dazzles oft the editorial eye.
You say it’s artificial, cramped, my lad?
Take care! I said so, and they called me mad.

The sonnet that was used in ages dark,
For songs of love, by Shakspere and Petrarch,
Is now appropriate to any theme—
Cant, metaphysics, bricks and mortar, steam.

Oh, not for you the grandeur and the glow,
The language that poetic poets know;
But rather word-confectionery make—
Heap sugar flowers upon a spongy cake.

If you’ve originality, disguise it;
Be sure that Aristarchus would despise it.
Keep off the grass! Remember poor old Walt!
Be insignificant, and shun his fault.

Become sophisticate, and ne’er reveal
Aught of emotion you may chance to feel;
‘Tis execrable form, ‘tis most ill-bred:
Song comes not from the heart, but from the head.

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