Aberrantry
Go forth, my song's antithesis,
Make a loud claim, acclaim your claim
Beyond the Word's periphrasis.
Perchance unwisdom, sensing this,
Shall turn again Whittington-wise
And, with indefinite surmise
Born of impertinence, find tame
Toys modelled of logic and of sense—
Mechanic toys that toy with sense
As with a painted cocoanut
Carved to the feature of its butt.
Pay her no homage. She'd reject
Homage, homage came of age
And struts and fawns and apes a rage
That simian prototypes affect.
Nor ask what you would have. She turns
Grief to a grin and grins to growls,
Twirling the whirligig bright prism,
And while Sir Malkin throatily howls :
" Mi-aw, Mi-aw, my own adored,"
Trolling his pussy-catechism,
He far outleaps the solecism
[ . . . ]
H.R. Barbor's poem "Aberrantry" was published in 1921 in the sixth cycle of the Wheels anthology. To read the poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below: