The Poet in the Nursery · First World War Poetry Digital Archive

Title

The Poet in the Nursery See all items with this value

Description

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