John Skelton by Robert Graves — Read

What could be dafter / Than John Skelton's laughter? / What sound more tenderly / Than his pretty poetry? / So where to rank old Skelton? / He was no monstrous Milton, / Nor wrote no "Paradise Lost," / So wondered at by most, / Phrased so disdainfully, / Composed so painfully. / He struck what Milton missed, / Milling an English grist / With homely turn and twist. / He was English through and through, / Not Greek, nor French, nor Jew, / Though well their tongues he knew, / The living and the dead: / Learned Erasmus said, / _Hie 'unum Britannicarum / Lumen et decus literarum._

But oh, Colin Clout! / How his pen flies about, / Twiddling and turning, / Scorching and burning, / Thrusting and thrumming! / How it hurries with humming, / Leaping and running, / At the tipsy-topsy Tunning / Of Mistress Eleanor Rumming! / How for poor Philip Sparrow / Was murdered at Carow, / How our hearts he does harrow / Jest and grief mingle / In this jangle-jingle, / For he will not stop / To sweep nor mop, / To prune nor prop, / To cut each phrase up / Like beef when we sup, / Nor sip at each line / As at brandy-wine, / Or port when we dine.