The Motley Muse

THE WORLD WE LAUGH IN! 'Sadness, once a favourite pose of poets, is no longer fashionable. Nowadays melancholy people are looked upon as depressing.'?The Gentlewoman. Bygone bards in baleful ballads would betoken Worlds of wretchedness and globes compact of gloom; Pensive poets of the past have sung or spoken Of the misery of mortals' daily doom, Of the hearts that are as hard as something oaken, Of the blossoms that are blighted ere they bloom, Of the ease with which a lover's vows are broken, And the terrors of the tomb! Now no longer 'tis the minstrel's mawkish fashion To narrate a tale of melancholy woe, Of some wight whose face was haggard, wan, and ashen, And who languished in the days of long ago, Who adored, with pure but unrequited passion, And a heart that was as soft as any dough, A divine but unsusceptible Circassian Who continued to say 'No'!