A Reaction to being Scolded

Being one who loves to tickle the earlobes with words, I looked at the twinkling stars, while making a night-time study of nonsense-verse. Wandering in the night, I travelled through my lexicon, sleepwalking and dreaming. I wrote at long last a poem inspired by the Muses. Then I searched out a wrestling school for words. Though my lofty speech was merely a game, I was afraid that its twists would seem dull in the light of the intellect I found there. But although my work of fancy in a Greek mode was merely a play on words, a whimsical fancy or country dance, a pompous showpiece with many long words, and was just done for fun, an easily angered group of confused critics took the bait I had offered, which was wriggling on my fishing line like a worm. Now, like catfish who chase imaginary monsters, they worry themselves into an ill humour over a squabble between frogs and mice.

Their suggestions are like to that of flogging a dead horse and they outrageously commit parrot-like repetitions of slow-stepping jumbles of words. Minds which adhere uncritically to the opinions of others and are fearful, write their commonplace remarks and they creak their scanty hatchings like grasshoppers. They relate their easily accessible, transient verse which is stained with grammatical errors, or even worse faults. Fruitless, scanty and sounding a dull roar are the writings of those with two left hands. Where is the golden-mouthed shout of praise which tears apart the shining heaven with its glittering, loudly echoing embracing speech reaching its reverberating final resolution in a reckless, tinkling making of stars? The endless and futile muttering, growing slightly bold in its mild badness is choking with its swirling pettishness the golden units of pronunciation, which reach their peak in swellingly melodic, feverishly increasing lines which cry out and fade. My readers cannot expect an oily apology or equivocal superficially acceptable cleaning up. So, wake up, you who wink, I have finished.