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) POSTGATE has commended me.... | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INSCRIPTIONS: 1. FOR A GROTTO by MARK AKENSIDE SONGS OF EXPERIENCE: INTRODUCTION by WILLIAM BLAKE THE NEED FOR MEN by JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND SIT DOWN SAD SOUL by BRYAN WALLER PROCTER TO MUSIC; A FRAGMENT by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY |