The Triumph of the Bedpan
By Wee Willie Wordsworth

Scorn not the bedpan; plumber, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honors; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his bowels; the melody
Of this small bowl gave ease to Petrarch’s wound;
A thousands times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoens soothed an exile’s grief;
The bedpan glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faeryland
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the bed of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Arse-animating strains—alas, too few!
(1827)

On First Hearing of Chapman’s Homer
By Black Jack Keats

Much have I traveled in realms of gold,
And many goodly parks and diamonds seen;
Round many western leagues have I been
Which batters in fealty to umpires hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-hit homer ruled as its demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared down the pitcher—and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, in the park at Darien.
(1816)

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