On me the onus has to fall Of your malevolent effusions; 'Tis I who bear the brunt of all Your libellous allusions; To bolster up your turgid verse, I jeopardise my very purse!
You do not hesitate to fleece The Publisher you scorn to thank, And when you manage to decrease His balance at the bank, Your face is lighted up with greed, And you are lantern-jawed indeed!
Yet will I still heap coals of fire, Until your coiffure is imbedded, And you at last, perchance, shall tire Of growing so hot-headed, And realise that being funny Is not a mere affair of money.
And so, in honour of your pow'rs, A fragrant bouquet will I pick, Of rare exotics, blossoms, flow'rs Of speech and rhetoric; I'll add a thistle, if I may, And, round the whole, a wreath of bay.
The blossoms for your button-hole, To mark your affluent condition, Exotics to inspire your soul To further composition. Come, set the bays upon your brow! * * * * * Well, eat the thistle, anyhow!
The jingling rhymes of Dr. Watts Excite the reader's just impatience, He wearies of Sir Walter Scott's Melodious verbal collocations, And with advancing years he learns To love the simpler style of Burns.
Too much the careworn critic knows Of that obscure robustious diction, Which like a form of fungus grows Amid the Kailyard school of fiction; In Crockett's cryptic caves one sighs For Burns's clear and spacious skies.
Tho' no aspersions need be cast On Barrie's wealth of wit fantastic, Creator of that unsurpass'd If most minute ecclesiastic; Yet even here the eye discerns No master-hand like that of Burns.
The works of Campbell and the rest Exhale a sanctimonious odour, Their vintage is but Schnapps, at best, Their Scotch is simply Scotch-and-sodour! They cannot hope, like Burns, to win That "touch which makes the whole world kin."
Tho' some may sing of Neil Munro, And virtues in Maclaren see, Or want but little here below, And want that little Lang, maybe; Each renegade at length returns, To praise the peerless pow'rs of Burns.
His verse, as all the world declares, And Tennyson himself confesses, The radiance of the dewdrop shares, The berry's perfect shape possesses; And even William Wordsworth praises The magic of his faultless phrases.