I'm sick of all these nincompoops, Who weep through yards of verse, And all these sonneteering dupes Who whine and froth and curse.
I'm sick of seeing my own name Tagged to some paltry line, While this old _corpus_ without shame Sits down to meat and wine.
I'm sick of all these Yellow Books, And all these Bodley Heads; I'm sick of all these freaks and spooks And frights in double leads.
When good Napoleon's publisher Was dangled from a limb, He should have had an editor On either side of him.
I'm sick of all this taking on Under a foreign name; For when you call it _decadent_, It's rotten just the same.
I'm sick of all this puling trash And namby-pamby rot,-- A Pegasus you have to thrash To make him even trot!
An Age-end Art! I would not give, For all their plotless plays, One round Flagstaffian adjective Or one Miltonic phrase.
I'm sick of all this poppycock In bilious green and blue; I'm tired to death of taking stock Of everything that's "New."
New Art, New Movements, and New Schools, All maimed and blind and halt! And all the fads of the New Fools Who can not earn their salt.
I'm sick of the New Woman, too. Good Lord, she's worst of all. Her rights, her sphere, her point of view, And all that folderol!
She makes me wish I were the snake Inside of Eden's wall, To give the tree another shake, And see another fall.
I'm very much of Byron's mind; I like sufficiency; But just the common garden kind Is good enough for me.
I want to find a warm beech wood, And lie down, and keep still; And swear a little; and feel good; Then loaf on up the hill,
And let the Spring house-clean my brain, Where all this stuff is crammed; And let my heart grow sweet again; And let the Age be damned.
The lips I might have tasted, rosy ripe as any cherry, How they pair off by the dozens when my memory goes back Across the current of the years aboard of Fancy's ferry, Which shuns the shores of What-We-Have and touches What-We-Lack. The girl I took t' singin'-school one night, who vowed she'd never Before walked with a feller 'thout her mother bein' by, I reckon that her temptin' mouth will haunt my dreams forever, The lips I might have tasted if I'd had the nerve t' try!
I recollect another girl, as chipper as a robin, Who rode beside me in a sleigh one night through snow an' sleet, An' both my hands I kept in use a guidin' good ol' Dobbin-- One didn't need them any mor'n a chicken needs four feet. Too scared was I to hold her in, or warm her cheeks with kisses,-- I know, now, she expected it, for once I heard her sigh-- To-day I'd like t' kick myself for these neglected blisses, The lips I might have tasted if I'd had the nerve t' try.