Many of his admirers have asserted that Britain ought to
have more than one Laureate, and that Mr. A-FR-D A-ST-N ought to be
among the number. Others are not prepared to go quite so far. They
have been heard to complain that cows and trees, and woodmen and
farms, and sheep and wains, and hay and turnips, do not necessarily
suggest the highest happiness, and that it is not always dignified for
an aspiring Poet to be led about helpless through the byeways of sense
by those wilful, wanton playfellows, his rhymes. The two factions may
be left to fight out their quarrel over the present example, which,
by the way, is _not_ taken from the collected edition of the Poet's
works.
IS LUNCH WORTH LUNCHING?
(_BY A-FR-D A-ST-N._)
Is Lunch worth lunching? Go, dyspeptic man,
Where in the meadows green the oxen munch.
Is it not true that since our land began
The horned ox hath given us steaks for lunch?
Steaks rump or otherwise, the prime sirloin,
Sauced with the stinging radish of the horse.
Beeves meditate and die; we pay our coin,
And though the food be often tough and coarse,
We eat it, we, through whose bold British veins
Bold British hearts drive bubbling British blood.
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