BALLADE OF THE POETIC LIFE.

Otago Witness, Issue 4029, 2 June 1931, Page 68

BALLADE OF THE POETIC LIFE.

By

J. C. Squire.

The fat men go about the streets, The politicians play their game. The prudent bishops sound retreats And think the martyrs much to blame: ■Honour and Love are halt and lame And Greed and Power are deified, The wild are harnessed by the tame— For this the poets lived and died. Shelley's a trademark used on sheets: Aloft the sky in words of flame We read *' What porridge had John Keats? Why, Brown’s 1 A hundred years the same I ” Arcadia’s an umbrella frame. Milton's a toothpaste : from the tide Sappho’s been dredged to rouge My Dame— For this the poets lived and died. Ah yet, to launch ideal fleets Lost regions in the stars to claim, To face all ruins and defeats, And sing a beaten world to shame. To hold each bright impossible aim Deep in the heart: to starve in pride For fame, and never know their fame — For this the poets lived and died. Envoi: Princess, inscribe beneath my name *’ Pie never begged, he never sighed. He took his medicine as it came ”; For this the poets lived—and died. Wheelock’s love poems have a rare depth and genuineness without anything maudlin. Witness this in the Saturday Review of Literature (New York) :