Classic Poem

If you ask me why inside
full I am of carnal pride,
if you bid me truly tell
why my head begins to swell —
'tis not that my name exists
in the Birthday Honours' Lists,
'tis not that they've made me yet
O.B.E. or Baronet:
these are things intended for
men who Help to Win the War,
tailors, tinkers, grocers, drapers,
men who own diurnal papers —
not to be accorded to
pedants mere like me and you:
something else it is than that
makes me want an ampler hat.
No! the reason of my bliss
simply is and solely this.
I, whom once they wished to shunt
for depreciating WUNDT ,
I, who nearly got the sack
for that villainous attack,
now am reinstated quite
by the truly erudite:
Postgate reads me: Postgate praises
my commemorative phrases,
views with an approving smile
my obituary style:
Postgate, who — it should be known —
is not pleased by every one,
he who smites with mailed fists
many so-called Latinists,
who with feelings justly harrowed
sometimes wreaks his wrath on Garrod
sometimes takes and wipes the floor
with Professor Phillimore —
(hence my pride and hence my glee)
P OSTGATE has commended me. . . .