ck up the dust
When rhymes refuse to flow;
And roomy, lest the seams be bust
Should the afflatus blow--
Say five-and-forty round the ribs and rather more below.

For poets they should stock a brand
To serve each type's behest--
Pastoral, epic, lyric--and
An outer size of chest
For those whose puffy job it is to build the arduous jest.

O.S.

* * * * *

THE WOLF AND THE LAMB.

(_An imaginary conversation._)

[In his lecture at the Royal Institution, to which Mr. Punch recently
referred, Mr. ALFRED NOYES said that "our art and literature were
increasingly Bolshevik, and if they looked at the columns of any
newspaper they would see the unusual spectacle of the political editor
desperately fighting that which the art and literary portions of the
paper upheld."]

SCENE.--_A Club-room near Fleet Street. The_ Political Editor _and the_
Literary Editor _of "The Daily Crisis" are discovered seated in adjoining
armchairs_.

_Political Editor._ Excuse me, but haven't I seen you occasionally in _The
Crisis_ office?

_Literary Editor._ Possibly. I look after its literary pages, you know.

_P.E._ Really? I run the political columns. Did you read my showing-up this
morning of the Bolshevik peril in the House of Lords?

_L.E._ I'm afraid I never read the political articles. Did you notice my
two-column boom of young Applecart's latest book of poems?

_P.E._ No time to read the literary columns, and modern poetry's as good as
Chinese to me. Who's Applecart?

_L.E._ My dear Sir, is it possible that you are unfamiliar with the author
of _I Will Destroy_? He's the hope of the future as far as English poetry
is concerned.

_P.E. (cheerfully)._ Never heard of him. What's he done?

_L.E. (impressively)._ He has overthrown all the rules, not only of art,
but of morality. He has created a new Way of Life.

_P.E._ Can't see that that's anything to shout about. What's his platform,
anyway?

_L.E._ Platform? To anyone who has tho slightest acquaintance with
Applecart the very idea of a platform is fantastic. He doesn't stand; he
soars.

_P.E._ Well, what are his _views_, then? Pretty tall, I suppose, if he's
such a high flier.

_L.E._ You may well say so. In the first place he discards all the old
artistic formulae.

_P.E._ I know; you write a solid slab of purple prose, scissor it