University of Virginia Library

A PLAGUE OF ASSES

Alas, we've fallen upon an evil time,
Our journals are all in a rash of rhyme.
Slang, “dialect,” the humor of the slum,
Done into stanzas by the rule of thumb,
The peasant word, the coarse, colloquial phrase,
Fitting the pauper thought that it conveys,
March to the meter-master's “hep, hep, hep,”
With every second soldier out of step.
What sins of ours deserve this heavy curse?
Who taught our clowns 'tis easy to write verse
If neither poetry nor wit be deemed
A needful ornament, nor sense esteemed
A twin of sound? O rustics of the quill,
Ill-made by Nature, making others ill,
(Landlubbers on the sea of song a-sail
Uttering your fancies o'er the leeward rail)
Forgive the wicked wish I cannot choose
But entertain—that, luckless, you may lose
Each one a thumb of the tormenting ten
Whereon you reckon syllables. Ah, then,
Restored to what it was before you learned
That grinning through horse-collars ever earned
Plaudits of rustics and enough of dollars
To pay the weekly rental of the collars,
With something over for the stomach's throes,
Your ailing verse will turn to ailing prose.
Then joyous angels will look down and say:
“Behold! the ninety-nine that went astray
Return to where, from fields of noxious grass,
Sweet thistles beckon each repenting ass.”