I know a polished pedagogue,
Who seeks a poet's bays,
A time-demolished pedagogue,
Plying Parnassian ways.

Vainly he lifts his lyric wings
Above the dusty streets;
He visions stars but feebly sings,
Dim counterfeit of Keats.

He tritely echoes yellowed books,
Heaped where a spider peers,
He simulates a poet's looks,
Deceiving none who hears.

With heart of flint and brain of ice,
He trails elusive words;
His singing lines are squeaking mice,
His songs are frozen birds!