You called?
Ballade of the Yale Younger Poets of Yesteryear
Tell me where, oh, where are they,
Those Younger Poets of Old Yale
Whose laurels flourished for a day
But wither now beyond the pale?
Where are Chubb, Farrar, and Vinal
With fame as fragile as a bubble?
Where is the late Paul Tanaquil,
And where is Lindley Williams Hubbell?
Where’s Banks? Where’s Boyle? Where’s Frances Clai-
Borne Mason? Where is T. H. Ferril?
Dorothy E. Reid or Margaret Ha-
Ley? Simmering in Bad Poets Hell?
J. Ingalls’ Metaphysical
Sword (hacking critics’ weeds to stubble)?
Young Ashbery (that is, “John L.”)?
And where is Lindley Williams Hubbell?
Where’s Alfred Raymond Bellinger
(If you’ll allow me to exhale
Him avec un accent français)?
Where’s Faust (Henri) or Dorothy Belle
Flanagan? Where is Paul Engle
(To rhyme whose surname gave me trouble)?
Hath tolled for all the passing bell?
And where is Lindley Williams Hubbell?
Prince of all poets, hear, I pray,
And raise them from their beds of rubble.
Where’s Younger Carolyn Forché?
And where is Lindley Williams Hubbell?
__________________
Ralph
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