Can aught thus love and cherish the Bacillus?
O "atmospheric envelope" thy humour
Is worse than—Blank's—if we may trust this rumour.
Since microbe "humour" fills both air and earth,
Farewell to honest fun and wholesome mirth!
Adieu to genial Dickens, gentle Hood!
Hail to the peddling pessimistic brood
Whose "nimini-pimimi" mouths, too small by half
To stretch themselves to a Homeric laugh,
Mince, in a mirror, to the "Paphian Mimp!"