MUSE v. MECHANIC.
["Mr. Norman Gale—the Muse of orchards and pretty girls with polished knees; a charm often left unsung."
—Mr. Andrew Lang on the Poems of "A Country Muse."]
"A Country Muse" sings, if you please,
Of pretty girls "with polished knees"!
One would not quite demolish
The graphic rhymester's stock-in-trade,
But if bare knees must be displayed,
He might forego the polish.
It smacks of fustian! Workmen's "bags"
Are very "polished" where the "sags"
From salient joints protuberant,
Grow shiny with continual friction;
But "polished knees" in poet's diction
Strike one as too exuberant.
Say varnished elbows, burnished knuckles,
And you'll elicit scornful chuckles
From Muse and from Mechanic!
Selections from the terms of trade
Would put, I'm very much afraid,
Parnassus in a panic.
The bards are sometimes rather free
With feminine anatomy;
Their catalogues erotic
Of pretty girls' peculiar "points,"
Their eyes and limbs, and curves and joints,
Are often idiotic.
But if we must be told, sometimes,
Ladies have limbs, then that your rhymes
May not offend or fog any,
Don't mechanise a maiden's charms;
Leave "polishing" to legs and arms
Of walnut or mahogany.