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! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JANGLING MEMORY by KATHERINE MANSFIELD YOUTH PENETRANT by CONRAD AIKEN GUARDIANSHIP by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON STREET CRIES: 6. TO RICHARD WAGNER by SIDNEY LANIER SONG BY THE WINDOW BEFORE BED by KATHERINE MANSFIELD |