And thence, through level champaign gliding, Past cottages with russet tiles, Past marsh and mead the stream goes sliding For half-a-dozen tranquil miles, Till, with its waters still untainted And fringed with waving starwort stems, With towns and factories unacquainted, It merges in the silver Thames. “Scorn not small things; their charm endears them,” The ancient poet wisely sang; Great rivers man admires but fears them; We love our homely little Pang. SIX VILE VERBS When I see on a poster A programme which “features” CHARLIE CHAPLIN and other Delectable creatures, I feel just as if Someone hit me a slam Or a strenuous biff On the mid diaphragm. When I read in a story, Though void of offences, That somebody “glimpses” Or somebody “senses,” The chord that is struck Fills my bosom with ire, And I’m ready to chuck The whole book in the fire. When against any writer It’s urged that he “stresses” His points, or that something His fancy “obsesses,” In awarding his blame Though the critic be right, Yet I feel all the same I could shoot him at sight. But (worst of these horrors) Whenever I read That somebody “voices” A national need, As the Bulgars and Greeks Are abhorred by the Serb, So I feel toward the freaks Who employ this vile verb. SOME MORE BAD WORDS In a recent verse adventure I compiled “a little list” Of the verbs deserving censure, Verbs that “never would be missed”; Now, to flatter the fastidious, Suffer me the work to crown With three epithets—all hideous— And one noisome noun. First, to add to the recital Of the words that gall and irk, Is the old offender “vital,” Done to death by overwork; Only a prolonged embargo On its use by Press and pen Can recall this kind of _argot_ Back to life again. I, in days not very distant, Though the memory gives me pain, From the awful word “insistent” Did not utterly refrain; Once it promised to refresh us, Seemed to be alert enough; Now I loathe it, laboured, precious— Merely verbal fluff. Thirdly, in the sheets that daily Cater for our vulgar needs, There’s a word that figures gaily In reviewers’ friendly screeds, Who declare a book’s “arresting,” Mostly, it must be confessed, Meaning just the problem-questing Which deserves arrest. Last and vilest of this bad band Is that noun of gruesome sound, “Uplift,” which the clan of _Chadband_ Hold in reverence profound; Used for a dynamic function ’Tis a word devoid of guile, Only as connoting unction It excites my bile. TO A MODERN MUSE