Bricks and Straw

My desk is cleared of the litter of ages;

Before me glitter the fair white pages;

My fountain pen is clean and filled,

And the noise of the office has long been stilled.

Roget’s Thesaurus is at my hand,

And I’m ready to do some work that’s grand,

Dignified, eminent, great, momentous,

Memorable, worthy of note, portentous,

Beautiful, paramount, vital, prime,

Stirring, eventful, august, sublime.

For this is the way, I have read and heard,

That authors look for the fitting word.

All of the proud ingredients mine

To build, like Marlowe, the mighty line.

But never a line from my new-filled pen

That couldn’t be done by a child of ten.

Oh, how did Shelley and how did Keats

Weave magic words on the fair white sheets

Under conditions that, were they mine,

I couldn’t bear? And I’d just resign.

Yet Milton wrote passable literature

Under conditions I couldn’t endure.

Coleridge and Chatterton did their stuff

Over a road that I’d christen rough.

Wordsworth and—soft!—could it be that they

Waited until they had something to say?