Classic Poem

H ERE'S to the novel without any plot,
Which brings to the mind calm delight;
The scholarly novel that interests not,
But structurally still is all right.
Then send the rich sterilised water around,
Till each brimming glass doth run o'er;
We'll drink to the tale in which no plot is found
Till we can't drink another drop more!

Dickens, and Thackeray, and Sir Walter Scott,
And others too numerous to mention,
Each one of them used a most palpable plot
As a cheap way to hold the attention:
We know now the plot to be thoroughly wrong,
Analysis these fellows lacked;
So drink to the hope that it may not be long
Till readers shall find out this fact!

The deadly romance, that dire pitfall of youth,
Ch, give me the photograph dear,
For I would have fiction as truthful as truth,
And never a smile or a tear.
On the plain commonplace should the novelist dwell,
The common and everyday topic;
In a way realistic he even should tell
Of the beautiful point microscopic.

Then here's to the utterly tasteless and tame,
The sleepy, the vapid, the flat;
And here's to each author who builds us the same
With a kodak concealed in his hat!
Then we'll drink, as the sterilised waters go round,
To the novel that fosters a snore;
To the plotless, the dull, but with principle sound,
Till we can't drink another drop more.