Classic Poem

So you have touched ten million! Well, I've noted
The annual increase of your circulation
From big to vast, from corpulent to bloated,
With, I confess, fastidious consternation.
But, as the saying goes, success succeeds;
And I'm now moved, as one who writes and reads,
To offer you my column of full-throated
(Though marketably dud) congratulation.

Ten million years at least this country lacked you
Studying your antecedents I have tracked you
To someone Pleistocene whose cranium crudely
Began the upward biologic struggle, —
Some Harmsworth ancestor whose Public nudely
Conversed in jargon of guffaw and guggle.
(Who knows what yarns he told of his demeanour
When menaced by a mammoth cave-hyaena?)

Primeval days were dull. Events existed
As unexploited masses of material.
Wars, plagues, and famines functioned unassisted,
And there was no synopsis to the serial.
The Bible woke things up. Yes, from the start
That over-edited chronicle recorded
Stories engrossing to the human heart,
Sexual, sensational, topical, and sordid.
From Eden outwards, there was nothing lacking
But paper, print, a sound financial backing,
And an exploitable Public to peruse
A journalistic venture.
Have you thought —
(Allowing for the slackness of the Jews
In the promotion of athletic sport) —
What a real smart News Editor'd have done
With Mrs. Adam's anti-social slips?
Excogitate the head-lines he'd have run . . .
" The Fall. Exclusive Story from Eve's Lips."
Then " Public Barred from Eden ." " Cain Sheds Blood ."
And " Startling New Development of Flood ."
And then the Gospels. . . . But why count the cost
Of unreported copy lived and lost?
The Past is an edition torn to tatters;
And only one thing now supremely matters;
Your enviable Journal's circulation
Exceeds our census'd London population.

But, while I write, doubt surges in my breast,
" To whom exactly are these words addressed?"
Do I so copiously congratulate
A lonely Earldom or a Syndicate?
Or am I speaking to familiar friends
Who hold your Shares and draw fat Dividends?
Were it not wiser, were it not more candid,
More courteous, more consistent with good sense,
If I were to include all, all who are banded
Together in achievement so immense?
For such inclusion is to have augmented
My audience to an almost national size.
I must congratulate those well-contented
And public-spirited Firms who advertise
Their functions, their ideals, their whole existence,
Across the current acreage of your sheets
With privileged and opulent persistence.
I must congratulate the London streets
Which you adorn with posters that reveal
From day to day, from hour to hour, those many
Events which most concern the public-weal,
And catch most easily the public-penny.
I must congratulate the winning Horse;
The Coin that lost the Test Match; the huge Fist
Of the sub-human Champion-Pugilist;
The simpering Siren in the Bart 's Divorce;
The well-connected Poisoner, tensely tried;
And the world-famed Bassoonist who has died.

Finally, O best and worst of rumour-breeders,
I damn your Circulation as a whole,
And leave you to your twice-ten-million readers
With deep condolence from my lenient soul.