Masefield was fifty-two when he was made Laurate so perhaps stripling is pushing it. But he looked younger.
John Masefield to King George V
Most poets are a long-haired lot
Who scorn the great outdoors.
They generally go to pot
Through laudanum or whores.
I am not witty, wise or sage.
I am not Rudyard Kipling.
I am not dignified with age,
But still a bardic stripling.
Yet what I am I mean to be,
A gentleman and sailor,
Who writes of hunting and the sea.
And has a decent tailor.
Too many poets stink like tramps.
I have a fresh complexion,
And I can get you foreign stamps
To stick in your collection.
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