280 • A Poet’s Blessing
One day, on a train, I met Tennyson
And offered to give him my benison.
By way of reward
(And because he’s a Lord)
He fed me a fragment of venison.
Dead 118 years ago today, and his tiresome oeuvre justly forgotten, this entitled poetaster’s name lives on as a gift to makers of very short pieces in which sound is a great deal more important than sense. ‘What hope is here for modern rhyme’ etc etc