Ventures Into Verse / Being various ballads, ballades, rondeaux, triolets, songs, quatrains, odes and roundels, all rescued from the potters' field of old files and here given decent burial

by H. L. Mencken

But a smile, I pray! Awake! sweetheart,

Awake! my own, my own!

ESSAYS IN OLD FRENCH FORMS

A BALLADE OF PROTEST[^[4]]

(To the address of Master Rudyard Kipling, Poetaster)

For long, unjoyed, we've heard you sing

Of politics and army bills,

Of money-lust and cricketing,

Of clothes and fear and other things;