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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


FO'C'S'LE YARNS: 3D SERIES: PRELUDE by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN

First Line: FIRST COMES TOM BAYNES AMONG THESE SORTED QUILLS
Last Line: AND ALL MY DREAMS OF MANXLAND FADE AWAY.
Subject(s): BAYNES, TOM;

FIRST comes Tom Baynes among these sorted quills,
In asynartete octosyllables.
Methinks you see the "fo'c's'le" squat, the squirt
Nicotian, various interval of shirt,
Enlarged, contract -- keen swordsman, cut-and-thrust:
Old salt, old rip, old friend, Tom Baynes comes @3fust@1.

Succeeds our Curate, innocent and good,
The growth of Oxford in her sanest mood;
Dame Nature's child, though bred among the Stoics,
And, if he gush, he gushes in heroics.
Forgive the youth if sometimes he relax
In extra gush of pseudo-dochmiacs.

Last hear our Pazon, reverend and meek;
In unadorned verse I make him speak,
As is most fit. To him Tom Baynes' rude style
Were "simply barbarous" -- I see him smile
@3His@1 smile -- "Poor Tom has thoughts beyond his station,
But language! sir -- unfit for publication."
The Curate's rhymes he haply thinks audacious,
Emphatic, overwrought. "But 'twere ungracious
Of me to criticise a gentleman
That is so kind and clever." There again
You have our @3Pazon@1. So he says his say,
And all my dreams of Manxland fade away.



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