Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RECIPE FOR A POEM, by ANONYMOUS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RECIPE FOR A POEM, by                    
First Line: Take for your hero some thoroughbred scamp
Last Line: "ere I swallow the brood of that ""heathen chinee."
Subject(s): Creative Ability;poetry & Poets; Inspiration;creativity


TAKE for your hero some thoroughbred scamp, --
Miner, or pilot, or jockey, or tramp, --
Gambler (of course), drunkard, bully, and cheat,
Facile princeps, in way of deceit;
So fond of the ladies, he's given to bigamy
(Better, perhaps, if you make it polygamy);
Pepper his talk with the raciest slang,
Culled from the haunts of his rude, vulgar gang;
Seasoned with blasphemy -- lard him with curses;
Serve him up hot in your "dialect" verses --
Properly dished, he'd excite a sensation,
And tickle the taste of our delicate nation.

Old Mother English has twaddle enough;
Give us a language that's ready and tough!
Who cares, just now, for a subject Miltonian?
Who isn't bored by a style Addisonian?
Popular heroes must wear shabby clothes!
What if their diction is cumbered with oaths!
That's but a feature of life Occidental,
Really, at heart, they are pious and gentle.
Think, for example, how solemn and rich is
The sermon we gather from dear "Little Breeches"!
Isn't it charming -- that sweet baby talk
Of the urchin who "chawed" ere he fairly could walk?

Sure, 't is no wonder bright spirits above
Singled him out for their errand of love!
I suppose I'm a "fogy," -- not up to the age, --
But I can't help recalling an earlier stage,
When a real inspiration (divinus afflatus)
Could be printed without any saving hiatus;
When humor was decently shrouded in rhyme,
As suited the primitive ways of the time,
And we all would have blushed had we dreamed of the rules
Which are taught us to-day in our "dialect" schools.

It may be all right, though I find it all wrong,
This queer prostitution of talent and song;
Perhaps, in our market, gold sells at a loss, --
And the public will pay better prices for dross, --
Well! 't were folly to row 'gainst a tide that has turned,
And the lesson that's set us has got to be learned;
But I'll make one more desperate pull to be free
Ere I swallow the brood of that "Heathen Chinee."





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