Hard Pushed

                                     (after “Col.” Bill Lampton, otherwise known as W.J.) 

Say

W.J.

Lampton, I

Don’t want to try

To follow in your footsteps, see,

But things are going bum with me.

My hand seems to have lost its cunning

Since, day after day I go a-gunning

For ideas and verses to bring me fame,

But day by day I get no game.

The cow of poesy won’t give down;

A strike is on in Boston town,

Not only with the men who grow the milk,

Middlemen, contractors and all their ilk,

But the goddess muse seems to refuse

To pay her dues and so the blues

My poor poetic path pursues.

And so, old Lampy, every time

I get stuck for decent rhyme

I take up this see-saw gait

You’ve worked so well of late

And hammer out some stuff,

Along the line of fluff,

Which seems to fill

The bill, and still, Bill,

I hate to walk

On your line of talk,

But have to at times

To get rhymes

To fill

Space

Bill!

May 2, ‘10

https://books.google.com/books?id=UXZHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA105&lpg=PA105&dq=Yawp+school+verse&source=bl&ots=Qc95TXxah5&sig=PTN_MMAXvrUN48nKRLG269wjfPs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VT09VYP8IIGZsAXGzoGgBA&ved=0CDgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=fred&f=false

                          http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1917/05/31/102349299.html?pageNumber=11