A poet’s petty vanity is easy to forgive: For what else can he call his own but pride? The written word before the image died; It has been so, long since the days when wealthy Byron lived. To sing of frost and boughs is not a luxury today, Nor are words worth the phantoms of delight That once tapped tongues of lovers in the night Who armed their hearts with lovely lies from poetry’s array. These are the days of poets’ whines, but seldom still their roses; And few drink the ambrosia of the gods. More often are they frauds or drunken sods, Who hide the poetry of life in livers with cirrhosis. Yet to be a Shakespeare in this age that Time’s unfurled Is to be the greatest unicyclist in the world.