These poems are so grim.
Now to read in light of our survey of literature.
I-- this was an early composition.
There I was.
I'd been given a job teaching English.
And to the big sophomore class, at course which--
it's covered all English.
And it was, all was given.
And I had to keep ahead of my class.
And I had not--
either at my native University in Oxford, in England--
taken any literary course.
Except the required freshman course in composition.
And I had audited the Shakespeare course.
So I had to take the Chaucer, middle English,
and old English.
That's Anglo-Saxon-- from two of my colleagues.
And read with all my might.
And I had a little mental indigestion
out of that experience, even more than my students.
And so I began making fun of these old birds,
whether they're good or bad.
And I fell into the habit of rhyming their names
with something to eat, something on the bill of fare,
for example.
In all the good Greek of Plato, I lacked my roast beef
and potato.
And after I'd done that three or four times,
I decided that there was a little method in that.
This was now not like Karl Marx, saying
that the culture was determined by the prevailing economy.
But this was saying that what we know,
our culture is determined by the dietary.
It's a dietetic principle.
And so here it is.
In all the good Greek of Plato, I lacked my roast beef
and potato.
The better man was Aristotle, pulling steady on the bottle.
And I dip my hat to Chaucer, swilling soup from his saucer.
And the master Shakespeare, who wrote big on small beer.
The abstemious Wordsworth subsisted on a curd's worth.
But a slick one was Tennyson, putting gravy on his venison.
But these men had to eat and drink, is what we say
and what we think.
The influence of Milton came, rye out of Stilton.
Sing the song for Percy Shelley, drowned in pale lemon jelly.
Then for precious John Keats, dripping
blood of pickled beets.
Then there was poor Willie Blake,
he foundered on sweet cake.
God have mercy on the sinner, who must write with no dinner.
No gravy, and no grub.
No pewter, and no pub.
No belly, and no bowels.
Only consonants and vowels.
[APPLAUSE]