OUCH         

Poets all should have long hair,
Dark haunted eyes and broken hearts,
Should languish long in dark despair,
Recording pain and sorrow's darts.

'Suffering', their watchword be;
Consumptive, with dry wracking cough,
Self-crucified for you and me
'Til, premature, they're carried off.

Thus their gifted lines are wrought,
That touch our souls and make us weep,
Their lofty station dearly bought-
Now vile usurpers on them creep.

These upstarts in their pinstripe suits
With simple style create distress;
Their lines, as soft as hobnailed boots,
That all begin 'Dear Sir, unless......!'


(Must have been bill-paying time when I cobbled this together some 30 years ago) :-D