In Memoriam of The Great Poet

There once was a famous poet and rich.
He was the best among the modern school,
And so it is not sufficient to critique his skill,
But only to write in praise of it.

His stately verse (you already know) could steal
Away unbeknownst and put a catching phrase
Beneath your nose before you had time to sneeze:
Nothing, of course, to suggest creativity all his own.

For it is the first rule in the modern school
(You hardly need to be told) never to betray
Ideas of one’s own, or reasoning of one’s mind.
The sole aim (I am sounding redundant,

For all know this by heart) is to draw
From the common pool, the common babble,
Some long-winded phrase or other, and,
Not to perfunctorily assent and affirm with a “yes”

And a nod, for (again, I state nothing new to you)
We do this in everyday talk
And are quite tired of it to tolerate it in verse;
But in modern poetry it is to take what is accepted

And so obscure it that it appears novel;
For what with all the advancements in knowledge
And love and goodness and virtue and all the important things
That separate us (we moderns) from them (the antiques),

It is to be remembered (I say this for literary effect,
For how could you forget?) that our simple ancestors
Used to partake in what they called “conversations,”
That is, an exchange of ideas, in agreement or no.

Our famous poet, then, never gave in to such primitive
Pastimes, for (you know this as well as I do)
He had a brother-in-law who had a cousin
Who taught Psychology at one of our leading

Universities; and sat in on (you know the name)
A lecture that explained in minute detail The
Evolution of The Human Mind and its capacity
For, and its kind of, thought and idea.

Such is the device of sophistry, that those
Of us with only a literary genius (I don’t
Mean to compare us with him) can still
Be made to understand the specialists of Science.

And as we now know it was immediately after hearing
This lecture that he submitted to The Honest Review
His world-renowned sonnet “Thoughts on Thoughts,”
The last couplet of which (we all have memorized):

“To the collective mind it is treason
For a single man to think and reason.”
And (as his obituarists were fond of noting)
“This timeless verse led one to wonder if he wrote poetry.”

Again, in this the great poet did not let his readers down,
For though as by a thread of time, he satisfied our desire
With that tear-jerking epitaph of so successful a Genius--
Who spent his illustrious life advancing the obscurity of modern art:

“’All things tend to get better with time,’
This is what my readers heard me rhyme;
Distract yourself when you’re about to die,
For only the living believe this lie.”

Author's Note:

The author of this free-verse piece wishes to express his warmest condolence to the surviving family and friends of The Great Poet; it was with not a few tears that he bore himself to its completion through the recurrence of so many fond memories of an old Master.

And he wishes to note that he wrote this piece chiefly for those young people who are just now coming to knowledge of The Great Poet, and has accordingly filled the verse with much useful parenthetical explanation for those who are "hearing it all over again," as the phrase goes.