Even great poets have their off-days. Wordsworth is a lavish contributor to D. B. Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lees’ The Stuffed Owl – An Anthology of Bad Verse.
The silent heavens have goings-on
This is a world of waste and ruin;
Consider, Charles, what you are doing.
This piteous news so much it shocked her
She quite forgot to send the Doctor.
A fly that up and down himself doth shove.
Few months of life has he in store
As he to you will tell,
For still, the more he works, the more
Do his weak ankles swell.
Bur there’s hope for all of us who write poetry. Wordsworth wrote this too:
Upon Westminster Bridge
EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Artists of all mediums have their off days. I guess the successful ones have more good days than bad ones.
Leslie
When they are good they are very very good, and when they are bad they are horrid.
“Ha! The god has feet of clay
So good we thought his every verse;
But every dog must have his day
Thank god Will’s work is seldom worse.”
I tried to write bad verse aping Wordsworth’s worst but couldn’t do it. Sorry, just mere doggerel.
You silly lad
your verse is bad
an awful job
that made me sob