Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, REWARDS AND FAIRIES, by ROGER WODDIS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

REWARDS AND FAIRIES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: If you can sleep when those who write about you
Last Line: And — which is more — you'll make a mint, my son!
Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936)


If you can sleep when those who write about you
Are buried deep in serious research,
If scholars who proclaim your work and spout you
Ascribe it to the slipper and the birch;
If you are drawn to men with muscles rippling,
And fancy brawn, according to the myth,
You might, when all is said, think more of Kipling,
And rather less of Martin Seymour-Smith.

If you can bear to wallow in a mudyard,
And pig it there with academic fools,
If you can snigger, when you rubbish Rudyard,
At what goes on in English public schools;
If you can prove a saint is made of plaster,
Or dare to claim an honoured name undone,
Your work of art will make the heart beat faster,
And — which is more — you'll make a mint, my son!





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