Kindness to Insects
Kindness to Insects
1I saw a Melancholy Wasp
3Who wept, "The Poets do me Wrong,
4Excluding me from Noble Song --
5Though Pure am I and Wholly Crimeless --
6Because, they say, my Name is Rhymeless!
7Oh, had I but been born a Bee,
8With Heaps of Words to Rhyme with me,
9I should not want for Panegyrics
10In Sonnets, Epics, Odes and Lyrics!
11Will no one free me from the Curse
12That bars my Race from Lofty Verse?"
13"My Friend, that Little Thing I'll care for
14At once," said I -- and that is wherefore
15So tenderly I set that Wasp
16Upon a Purple Clover Knosp.
Notes
2] Knosp: "An architectural (or other) ornament in the form of a bud, or forming a bunch-like or rounded protuberance; a knop, knob, boss, stud" (OED). Back to Line
Publication Notes
Guiterman, Arthur, The Light Guitar (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1923): 168.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire