Mr Pope

When Alexander Pope strolled in the city

Strict was the glint of pearl and ''old sedans.

Ladies leaned out more out of fear than pity

For Pope's tight back was rather a goat's than man's

Often one thinks the urn should have more bones

Than skeletons provide for speedy dust,

The urn gets hollow, cobwebs brittle as stones

Weave to the funeral shell a frivolous rust.

And he who dribbled couplets like a snake

Coiled to a lithe precision in the sun

Is missing. The jar is empty; you may break

It only to find that Mr. Pope is gone.

What requisitions of a verity

Prompted the wit and rage between his teeth

One cannot say. Around a crooked tree

A moral climbs whose name should be a wreath.