Читать книгу Poems. Volume 2 - George Meredith - Страница 20

What say you, critic, now you have become

An author and maternal?—in this trap

(To quote you) of poor hollow folk who rap

On instruments as like as drum to drum.

You snarled tut-tut for welcome to tum-tum,

So like the nose fly-teased in its noon’s nap.

You scratched an insect-slaughtering thunder-clap

With that between the fingers and the thumb.

It seemeth mad to quit the Olympian couch,

Which bade our public gobble or reject.

O spectacle of Peter, shrewdly pecked,

Piper, by his own pepper from his pouch!

What of the sneer, the jeer, the voice austere,

You dealt?—the voice austere, the jeer, the sneer.