"Thrice in all Elfinesse, I ween", indeed (or rather forsooth). Reminds me of the bard (possibly in A.A. Milne's Once On A Time (1917)), who gets stuck on a couplet about "this enchanted scene"/"..., I ween", because he suddenly can't decide whether it ought to be "this enchanted spot"/"..., I wot". But we shouldn't be too harsh - narrative in tetrameter rhyming couplets, in English, is an almost suicidally unforgiving form.
... which leads me to Wodehouse's vendetta against A A Milne, in “Rodney has a Relapse”, in which Milne, against whom Wodehouse had (as I believe the young people say) beef, is fictionalised as Rodney Spelvin: "a writer who had once been a poet and a very virulent one, too; the sort of man who would produce a slim volume of verse bound in squashy mauve leather at the drop of a hat, mostly on the subject of sunsets and pixies."
Spelvin used to have a respectable career as a crime writer, but has redirectd his writing career:
"Do you know where Rodney is at this moment? Up in the nursery, bending over his son Timothy’s cot, gathering material for a poem about the unfortunate little rat when asleep. Some boloney, no doubt, about how he hugs his teddy bear and dreams of angels. Yes, that is what he is doing, writing poetry about Timothy. ... when I tell you that he refers to him throughout as "Timothy Bobbin", you will appreciate what we are up against.
I am not a weak man, but I confess that I shuddered."
The story has lots of "Timothy Bobbin Goes Hoppity/Hoppity/Hoppity/Hoppity/Hop" stuff.
"Hark! how they sudden twang and sing
when Felagund lets forth a cry"
It's not bloody Tinfang Warble again, is it?
"Thrice in all Elfinesse, I ween", indeed (or rather forsooth). Reminds me of the bard (possibly in A.A. Milne's Once On A Time (1917)), who gets stuck on a couplet about "this enchanted scene"/"..., I ween", because he suddenly can't decide whether it ought to be "this enchanted spot"/"..., I wot". But we shouldn't be too harsh - narrative in tetrameter rhyming couplets, in English, is an almost suicidally unforgiving form.
... which leads me to Wodehouse's vendetta against A A Milne, in “Rodney has a Relapse”, in which Milne, against whom Wodehouse had (as I believe the young people say) beef, is fictionalised as Rodney Spelvin: "a writer who had once been a poet and a very virulent one, too; the sort of man who would produce a slim volume of verse bound in squashy mauve leather at the drop of a hat, mostly on the subject of sunsets and pixies."
Spelvin used to have a respectable career as a crime writer, but has redirectd his writing career:
"Do you know where Rodney is at this moment? Up in the nursery, bending over his son Timothy’s cot, gathering material for a poem about the unfortunate little rat when asleep. Some boloney, no doubt, about how he hugs his teddy bear and dreams of angels. Yes, that is what he is doing, writing poetry about Timothy. ... when I tell you that he refers to him throughout as "Timothy Bobbin", you will appreciate what we are up against.
I am not a weak man, but I confess that I shuddered."
The story has lots of "Timothy Bobbin Goes Hoppity/Hoppity/Hoppity/Hoppity/Hop" stuff.
Tolkein’s poetry was not good.
It was better than C S Lewis's poetry. But: no, it wasn't.
I was reading today in carpenters biography of Tolkein that Lewis was critical of Tolkein’s poetry. But I agree they were both terrible.