Drothful Lucubration
A dark and stormy night, this night,
Yet ‘tween the clouds the full moon bright
Looks down upon me as I write
These dark and stormy lines.
But hark ! A distant howling queer
I fancy I mayhap may hear
From out the corner of my ear
And through my very spine –
And though my heart may drown it out,
I cannot labour long in doubt,
For surely do I know that sound without,
As it knows me.
The gusting wind brings to my door
A growling low from off the moor
That chills my very being o’er
To tremulous degree.
These pluvious and savage spawn
Shall stalk the psyche ere the dawn,
Shall stalk my rain-lashed psyche ere the dawn.
The Hounds of Dogg’rel bay this night
To seek the forced and base and trite,
And dog the heels of all who write,
Lest we should lapse their way.
We ever fear to be their sport,
Their pity, ruth and mercy nought
To purple, blue or overwrought:
They hack their hackneyed prey.
So some poor pensmith faces doom,
His garret shall become his tomb
As bursting forth, those savage Hounds consume
Each leaden verse;
Their author thus shall meet the fangs
That shred the hand whose metre clangs,
And fore’er mute his blunt harangues
That brought him to these curs,
I pray all gods, I beg, I yearn,
This ill-dread night is not my turn,
This dark and stormy night is not my turn.
Rhyming Couplets 