Poems — The Shakespeare Memorial

THE SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL

Lord Lilac thought it rather rotten That Shakespeare should be quite And therefore got on a Committee With several chaps out of the city.

And Shorter and Sir Herbert Tree, Lord Rothschild and Lord Rosebery And F. C. G.

and Comyns Carr, Two dukes and a dramatic star, Also a clergyman now dead;

And while the vain world careless sped Unheeding the heroic name-- The souls most fed with Shakespeare's flame Still sat unconquered in a ring, Remembering him like anything.

Lord Lilac did not long remain.

Lord Lilac did not come again.

He softly lit a cigarette And sought some other social set Where, in some other knots or rings, People were doing cultured things, --Miss Zwilt's Humane Vivarium --The little men that paint on gum --The exquisite Gorilla Girl....

He sometimes, in this giddy whirl (Not being really bad at heart), Remembered Shakespeare with a start-- But not with that grand constancy Of Clement Shorter, Herbert Tree, Lord Rosebery and Comyns Carr And all the other names there are;

Who stuck like limpets to the spot, Lest they forgot, lest they forgot.

Lord Lilac was of slighter stuff;

Lord Lilac had had quite enough.