Bards, pour your benison on Baron Tennyson,

Who vulgarised the art of rhyming,

And set the twaddle that fills each noddle

In endless jingle-jangle chiming:

Rhyme, brothers, rhyme, each puling poetaster,

And inundate the Master, Master, Master.

Recitative and Aria: Lord Tennyson.

Bards, idle bards, I know not what ye mean!

Words powerfully expressive of despair

Rise to my lips and flash from out my eyes