In several of the pems recently posted, the poet refers by name to other poets. I'll offer two more in that theme.
A word is in order on the first, The Poets at Tea by Barry Pain. Pain imagines ten poets conversing over tea; in each section of the poem, one poet speaks in his characteristic voice. To keep this post brief I've included only three of the ten, Macauley (abbreviated), Poe, and Walt Whitman. (omitting Tennyson, Swinburne, Cowper, Browning, Wordsworth, Rossetti and Burns)
Pour, varlet, pour the water,
The water steaming hot!
A spoonful for each man of us,
Another for the pot! ...
Whiter than snow the crystals
Grown sweet 'neath tropic fires,
More righ the herb of China's field,
The pasture-lands more fragrance yield;
Forever let Britania wield
The teapost of her sires!
Here's a mellow cup of tea -- golden tea!
What a world or rapturous thought its fragance brings to me!
Oh, from out the silver cells
How it wells!
How it smells!
Keeping tune, tune, tune,
To the tintinnabulation of the spoon.
And the kettle on the fire
Boils its spout off with desire,
With a desperate desire
And a crystalline endeavor
Now, now to sit, or never,
On the top of the pale-faced moon,
But he alwyays came home to tea, tea, tea, tea, tea,
Tea to the n-th.
One cup for my self-hood,
Many for you. Allons, camerados, we will drink together,
O hand-in-hand! That tea-spoon, please when you've done with it.
What butter-colored hair you've got. I don't want to be personal.
All right, then, you needn't. You're a stale-cadaver.
Eigthteen-pence if the bottles are returned.
Allons, from all bat-eyed formulas.
