64528: The Poet in the Nursery

<p dir="ltr"> The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling<br> In a dim library, just behind the chair<br> From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling<br> A song about some lovers at a Fair,<br> Pulling his long white beard and gently grumbling<br> That rhymes were troublesome things and never there.<br> And as I groped, the whole time I was thinking<br> About the tragic poem I'd been writing,...<br> An old man's life of beer and whisky drinking,<br> His years of kidnapping and wicked fighting;<br> And how at last, into a fever sinking,<br> Remorsefully he died, his bedclothes biting.<br> But suddenly I saw the bright green cover<br> Of a thin pretty book right down below;<br> I snatched it up and turned the pages over,<br> To find it full of poetry, and so<br> Put it down my neck with quick hands like a lover,<br> And turned to watch if the old man saw it go.<br> The book was full of funny muddling mazes,<br> Each rounded off into a lovely song,<br> And most extraordinary and monstrous phrases<br> Knotted with rhymes like a slave-driver's thong,<br> And metre twisting like a chain of daisies<br> With great big splendid words a sentence long.<br> I took the book to bed with me and gloated,<br> Learning the lines that seemed to sound most grand;<br> So soon the lively emerald green was coated<br> With intimate dark stains from my hot hand,<br> While round the nursery for long months there floated<br> Wonderful words no one could understand.</p>