(After reading an Anthology of Modern Verse.)
Soon Tennyson may have his dream come true --
That time would change the language so that he
Should find himself with Chaucer totally
Eclipsed -- a fossil curious to view,
Not understood save by the student-few.
Rhyme has gone out, and bored posterity
Dubs it B.F. (Before Freud), sic, B.C.
Verse has a rendezvous with all things new.
Nathless, vide: "Old soldiers never die,
They simply fade away." Old poets still
Subconsciously in ghostly conclave meet,
As when, inserted like a Cyclop's eye,
A phrase or line filched from an ancient quill,
Illumes some modern poet's dark conceit.
First published in The Sunday Herald, 24 April 1949
