Lapsus Calami

James Kenneth Stephen (1859–1892)

To R. K.

WILL there never come a season

Which shall rid us from the curse

Of a prose which knows no reason

And an unmelodious verse:

When the world shall cease to wonder

At the genius of an ass,

And a boy’s eccentric blunder

Shall not bring success to pass:

When mankind shall be delivered

From the clash of magazines,

And the inkstand shall be shivered

Into countless smithereens:

When there stands a muzzled stripling,

Mute, beside a muzzled bore:

When the Rudyards cease from Kipling

And the Haggards ride no more?