Classic Poem

Ug was a hairy but painstaking artist,
—Back in a simple and primitive age.
Listen, young Poet! And ere thou departest,
—Haply thou'lt learn something. (Haply thou'lt rage!)
Ug fashioned arrowheads, slowly and neatly,
—Chipping all day at the hardest of stone;
Made them symmetrical, polished them sweetly,
—Sharpened their points with a skill all his own.

Long ones and short ones and fat ones or narrow,
—Bolts of obsidian, spearheads of flint;
Some that could crash through a mastodon's marrow,
—Some that were prized for their beautiful tint;
Endless varieties told of his talents—
—All were alike in that all were acute,
All had the symmetry, finish and balance
—Arrows must have if one wants them to shoot.

And then, one day,
Ug began to notice
A distinct falling off in his trade,
And, upon inquiry, he found
That a new school of arrowhead-makers
Who made what they called “Free Arrowheads”
Was getting popular among the young men.
The arrowheads were “free”
In the sense that they had no shape,
Being mere amorphous chunks
Of flint, or sandstone or blue mud
Or any thing.
It seems that the old, shapely kind
Was felt to be monotonous and antique,
Being even on both sides,
Like a foolish old Grecian jar,
Or a butterfly, or a woman.
While the new kind
Could “express the soul” of its maker,
In looking like a piece of cheese.
You couldn't hit anything with the new kind
Because they wouldn't shoot straight;
But being purely “subjective” arrowheads,
They weren't intended to hit anything.
So Ug was neglected,
Until people began to get hungry . . .
And then, since he was the only
Skilled maker left in the country
He became
A millionaire.