At a Lecture.

Edward Shanks 1892 (London) – 1953



The lecturer took his place and looked
At the eager women's faces,
Then he cleared his throat and he jetted out
A stream of commonplaces.
  
He fondled Wordsworth and patted Shelley
And said with his hand on his heart
He would brook no interference from morals
In any matter of art.
  
He finished at last and strode away
Over the naked boards,
Erect in his conscious majesty
Back to the House of Lords.
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

22 sec read
16

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXA BCXC XDBD
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 392
Words 75
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4

Edward Shanks

Edward Richard Buxton Shanks was an English writer, known as a war poet of World War I, then as an academic and journalist, and literary critic and biographer. He also wrote some science fiction. He was born in London, and educated at Merchant Taylors' School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He passed his B.A. in History in 1913. He was editor of Granta from 1912-13. He served in World War I with the British Army in France, but was invalided out in 1915, and did administrative work until war's end. He was later a literary reviewer, working for the London Mercury and for a short while a lecturer at the University of Liverpool. He was the chief leader-writer for the Evening Standard from 1928 to 1935. The People of the Ruins was a science-fiction novel in which a man wakes after being put into suspended animation, to discover a devastated Britain. more…

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    "At a Lecture." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/55054/at-a-lecture.>.

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