On a Vulgar Error
Clive Staples Lewis 1898 (Clive Staples Lewis Belfast) – 1963 (Oxford)
No. It's an impudent falsehood. Men did not
Invariably think the newer way Prosaic
mad, inelegant, or what not.
Was the first pointed arch esteemed a blot
Upon the church? Did anybody say How
modern and how ugly? They did not.
Plate-armour, or windows glazed, or verse fire-hot
With rhymes from France, or spices from Cathay,
Were these at first a horror? They were not.
If, then, our present arts, laws, houses, food
All set us hankering after yesterday,
Need this be only an archaising mood?
Why, any man whose purse has been let blood
By sharpers, when he finds all drained away
Must compare how he stands with how he stood.
If a quack doctor's breezy ineptitude
Has cost me a leg, must I forget straightway
All that I can't do now, all that I could?
So, when our guides unanimously decry
The backward glance, I think we can guess why.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 14, 2023
- 47 sec read
- 81 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXA AXA ABA CBC XBD CED XE |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 840 |
Words | 154 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2 |
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"On a Vulgar Error" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/6952/on-a-vulgar-error>.
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