“‘Sweet primrose time! When thou art here
I go by grassy ledges
Of long lane-side, and pasture mead,
And moss-entangled hedges.’
That’s very lovely, and, as far as it goes, it is all right. There’s no harm in doing what the poet so delicately suggests, but I think there should have been other stanzas for the protection of the reader like this:
“But have a care, oh, readers fair,
To take your mackintoshes,
And on your feet be sure to wear
A pair of stanch galoshes.
“Nor should you fail when seeking out
The primrose, golden yeller,
To have at hand somewhere about
A competent umbrella.
Thousands of people are inspired by lines like the original to go gallivanting all over the country in primrose time, to return at dewy eve with all the incipient symptoms of pneumonia. Then there’s the case of Wordsworth. He was one of the loveliest of the Nature poets, but he’s eternally advising people to go out in the early spring and lie on the grass somewhere, listening to cuckoos doing their cooking, watching the daffodils at their daily dill, and hearing the crocus cuss; and some sentimental reader out in New Jersey thinks that if Wordsworth could do that sort of thing, and live to be eighty years old, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t do the same thing. What’s the result? He lies on the grass for two hours and suffers from rheumatism for the next ten years.”
“Tut!” said the Poet. “I am surprised at you. You can’t blame Wordsworth because some New Jerseyman makes a jackass of himself.”
“In a way all writers should be responsible for the effect of what they write on their readers,” said the Idiot. “When a poet of Wordsworth’s eminence, directly or indirectly, advises people to go out and lie on the grass in early spring, he owes it to his public to caution them that in some localities it is not a good thing to do. A rhymed foot-note—
“This habit, by-the-way, is good
In climes south of the Mersey;
But, I would have it understood,
It’s risky in New Jersey—
would fulfil all the requirements of the special individual to whom I have referred, and would have shown that the poet himself was ever mindful of the welfare of his readers.”
The Poet was apparently unconvinced, so the Idiot continued: