Bards of my Métier
Ah, ye that love the English strain,
Neglect not humble versemen,
Rhymers deserve not your disdain
As though they had been worse men:
The thinker nor the tinker jilt,
We all must do some snatching,
Language is an enormous quilt
And there’s a lot for patching.
That line you think you’ve heard before,
Its meter gently rippling,
It’s nothing new, you know the score,
I got that line from Kipling.
Again you may think that you’ve heard
A cadence—if but one bar--
You caught the theft that has occurred,
For that one came from Dunbar.
Small theft of something valid, dear,
Ought not to make one nervous,
Each one of us “Bab Balladeer”
Must be—that owed to Service.
So life requires much “give and take,”
We play our part by turns--
And if some tune make your heart break
It prob’ly came from Burns.
Neglect not humble versemen,
Rhymers deserve not your disdain
As though they had been worse men:
The thinker nor the tinker jilt,
We all must do some snatching,
Language is an enormous quilt
And there’s a lot for patching.
That line you think you’ve heard before,
Its meter gently rippling,
It’s nothing new, you know the score,
I got that line from Kipling.
Again you may think that you’ve heard
A cadence—if but one bar--
You caught the theft that has occurred,
For that one came from Dunbar.
Small theft of something valid, dear,
Ought not to make one nervous,
Each one of us “Bab Balladeer”
Must be—that owed to Service.
So life requires much “give and take,”
We play our part by turns--
And if some tune make your heart break
It prob’ly came from Burns.