VI
Still we can laugh at burgesses and churls
In our excess of agony and lust.
We pity these poor prudes, insipid girls
And tepid boys, these creatures of the dust.
We pity all these meal-mouthed montebanks
That prate of Jesus, ethics, faith and reason,
These jerry-built dyspeptics, stuccoed cranks,
Their lives one dreary plain, one moist dull season
Like their grey land. O costive crapulence!
They ache and strain within the water-closet
Of church and State, their shocked bleat of offence:
"This poet's life was such a failure". Was it?
Fools! our worst boredom was a loftier thrill
Than all you ever felt—or ever will.
In our excess of agony and lust.
We pity these poor prudes, insipid girls
And tepid boys, these creatures of the dust.
We pity all these meal-mouthed montebanks
That prate of Jesus, ethics, faith and reason,
These jerry-built dyspeptics, stuccoed cranks,
Their lives one dreary plain, one moist dull season
Like their grey land. O costive crapulence!
They ache and strain within the water-closet
Of church and State, their shocked bleat of offence:
"This poet's life was such a failure". Was it?
Fools! our worst boredom was a loftier thrill
Than all you ever felt—or ever will.
— 122 —
