The Spoonbill Generator

'Twas Pope who wrote that angels fear [Apsley]

To rush where fools abide [Surlaw]

But he had drunk three quarts of beer [Apsley]

And several pints beside [Surlaw]

He ran full headlong into Swift [Apsley]

In front of old St Paul's [Surlaw]

And found himself then soundly biffed [Apsley]

That's how he lost his balls [Surlaw]

Southey, then, did cross his way [Apsley]

Behind Madame Tussaud's [Surlaw]

And played him quite a roundelay [Apsley]

That quelled the raging hordes [Surlaw]

But, for Pope, it dished his brains [Apsley]

Not far from Hampton Court [Surlaw]

Where the steeple amply cranes [Apsley]

And tresses are cut short [Surlaw]

So Pope, poor fool, was Dryden's sot, [Apsley]

And clapped him in the Tower [Surlaw]

Which was the only praise he got [Apsley]

And lasted half an hour [Surlaw]

Pope then met the poet Blake [Apsley]

In Stratford-atte-Bowe [Surlaw]

Where they wrastled in the lake [Apsley]

The cheeky so-and-so ... [Anon.]

But, of them all, 'twas surely Keats [Apsley]

Who cracked the maker's mould [Surlaw]

And got so many 'tween the sheets [Apsley]

Before he quit the fold [Surlaw]

Envoi: Poets should not rightly say [Apsley]

'Calloo', unless they mean 'Callay'. [Surlaw]