O, glorious Lord, please make it so
That down along eternity we’ll row
Atilted headlong, nattering the way
All mouth, no sleep, and endless be our day:
The Chesterton Night Tour, the Shaw Express,
A picknicking of brains in London dress
As one by one we cleave the railroad steams
To circumnavigate my noon and midnight dreams.
First Shaw arrives and hands me biscuit tin
“Grab on, dear child,” he cries. “Get in, get in!”
His voice pure Life Force judge and Mankind’s Maker.
G.K. climbs up past Shaw and ticket-taker.
Now down the line trots Dickens, paced by Twain.
“Hold on!” cries Mark. And Dickens: “Stop that train!”
“It’s stopped,” snorts Shaw, “are your brains packed? Aboard!”
With this last as commandment from our Lord
We jostle up to face each other’s wits
As Shaw amidst the mob like statue sits
And maunders up his tongue to launch the Game
His merest cough a shot to walk us lame.
Now Poe arrives in furs, he’s dressed for snows
Cold flurries caper him where e’er he goes,
Seen distantly his broad pale brow’s a moon
That sinks at daybreak but to rise at noon.
Charles Dickens’s stunned, but Twain cries, “Man alive!”
G. Shaw and G.K.? blind, as Deaths arrive
Just I amongst them hear pale Edgar’s tune
His pale heartbeat with tone that echoes loon.
Now Wilde wafts on, empurpled are his drums
As something wily-witted this way comes.