Poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Verses to John Tupper

DEAR Jack
Alack!
A few days back
I bound myself by oath to smack
My lips o'er sloshy tea, and attack
White, brown, or black
Bread, and vile jokes to crack,
This night with brutes whose knack
Would squeeze a pun in Syriac.
And for to—morrow, alack!
I have a model on my track,
So that I may not pack.
Of course I writhe upon the rack:
Though as to NATURE, Jack,
(Poor dear old hack!)
Touching sky, sun, stone, stick, and stack,
I guess I'm half a quack;
For whom ten lines of Browning whack
The whole of the Zodiac.
Nevertheless, alack!
Seeing this time I must send back
To Prince and Baron, Stephens and Jack
(Spec—cadav Rex, hic hæc hoc hac),
And to the Maniac,
The sack.
This much from D.G.R. (in black,
I.e., with coal—ash cloth—of—sack.) 

1. The House of Life. Sonnet 70. The Hill Summit
2. On Certain Elizabethan Revivals
3. Penumbra
4. At Issue
5. The House of Life. Sonnet 66. The Heart of the Night

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