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In poesy, I flaunt fatal flaws,
Preferring ‘thou’, (or ‘thine’ to ‘yours’),
And though I never stretched to ‘thee’
I could have done, believe thou me.
It’s just pretentiousneff, one guesses,
Substituting ‘ff’s for ‘ss’es,
Yet, I mourn (like Miniver C)
The rhyming scans that died with ‘thee’,
And mourn still more the loss of ‘thou’
(So helpful when one’s bombing Slough);
But as for that, I’ve sworn an oath
To editors and readers, both,
To clothe my thoughts in modern dreff
And come to love a double ‘ss’.
‘Miniver cursed the commonplace ‘Come friendly bombs and drop on Slough!
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing; It isn’t fit for humans now,
He missed the mediæval grace There isn’t grass to graze a cow.
Of iron clothing.’ Swam over, Death!’
from ‘Miniver Cheevy’ from ‘Slough’
— Edward Arlington Robinson — John Betjeman
I have noted it publicly before and wish to say again: there is not a ‘thee’, ‘thine’ or ‘thou’ in my published poetry that my sensible editor, Simon Rae, has not attempted to excise. How right he is, of course, and how grateful I am to him for having broken me (almost) of the habit. And yet....
