Classic Poem

Mine is, alas! a flippant muse,
If she's a heart she does not show it,
So she and I have different views;
I want to be a real poet!
I want my verses to be read
With tears by men of lofty station,
I want a statue, when I'm dead,
Erected by a grateful nation!

I'm sick of writing ribald rhymes,
I 'm tired of cutting humorous capers,
I want my poems in The Times
And all the other daily papers.
Like Lewis Morris I will sing
— At quite unusual length — of Hades.
The critics say that sort of thing
Is very much admired by ladies.

With William Watson I 'll declaim
Armenia's woes and make you shudder,
Or rival Edwin Arnold's fame
By writing further reams on Buddha.
I feel a playwright's fire in me,
I do not hesitate to say it;
I'll write a blank verse tragedy
And Mr. Beerbohm Tree shall play it.

I'll turn out patriotic lays,
And make the music-halls recite them
They'll win me universal praise
— And almost any fool can write them.
My lyrics shall surpass belief,
I'll shine alike in song and sonnet;
And when my country comes to grief
I'll write a threnody upon it.

Till Austin, weary of the way
Those wicked critics daily twit him,
Will lay aside his wreath of bay
— Which really never seems to fit him.
Then all the other bards who try
To seize the crown will be rejected,
For nobody can doubt that I
Shall be the gentleman selected.

The papers will be charmed to hear
That one fine morning I 've been knighted,
And later, when I 'm made a peer,
They will be equally delighted.
And when my day of death is come
I shall, I hope, like Master Horner,
Pluck from life's pie one final plum
Serenely in the Poet's Corner.