The Writers’ Graveyard on the Strand

Who would stoop lower than Lowell

Who pilfered poor Hardwick’s letters

To furnish his own poetry,

After he had abandoned her

For Caroline Lockwood, of all

Women, who herself wrote with such

Disgust through her characters’ views

Of the world and such characters?

Whoever likes them all, that’s who,

Who writes excited, unsent mails

Comparing Lockwood’s graphic squick

In common matters to Doshi’s,

Who roots down in Hardwick’s reviews,

Who still laughs at Lowell’s Quakers

Reassuring themselves that God

Must be on their side as they drown,

Else we had drowned quick. You all drown

Quick, the lively and the bitter,

Despairing poet and victims

He picked for burning also bright

But more evenly than he could.

Then everyone else combs the beach,

And picks through wrack, and boasts good finds,

Until waves rising lower all.