Is our τὸ τι ἦυ εἶναι a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?
James Kenneth Stephen, like so many of the English minor poets, expresses his humorous vein best in parody.
Stephen’s light verse belongs mostly to his undergraduate days.
A SONNET
Two voices are there: one is of the deep;
It learns the storm-cloud’s thunderous melody,
Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea,
Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep:
And one is of an old half-witted sheep
Which bleats articulate monotony.