Pope and Keats were nothings,
only two feet high –
all the enormous Sitwells
were towering to the sky.
Edith once told Bottrall
physical size was all –
miniature masterpieces weren’t on,
by anybody small!
All long, or little, poems
by Thwaite or Taner Baybars
are bound to be a waste of time
and, you might say, lost labours.
No chance for midget madrigals –
the Muse abhors dwarf dwellings.
The palaces of giants alone,
with music’s sweetest swellings,
grotesque and slightly clumsy,
but large and madly airy,
are where she likes to take her ease,
a fatuous fat fairy.
So little people, leprechauns,
and those the size of Japs,
need not apply as geniuses –
the fitting of the caps
goes on, and Immortality
(despising sound and sense)
will only settle on your head
if you are quite immense!
Send Letters To:
The Editor
London Review of Books,
28 Little Russell Street
London, WC1A 2HN
letters@lrb.co.uk
Please include name, address, and a telephone number.