A DEFENCE.
Daily Chronicle, January 21, 1905
1 [Because a man began to compose a poem in his surgery a Bangor doctor certified that he was drunk.]
It really seems a little hard,
Because a person is a bard,
That doctors should be led to think
Him very much the worse for drink.
Full many a songster, I aver,
Is quite the strict teetotaller.
Myself, for instance, many a time
Have scoured my “Walker” for a rhyme.
I’ve written things in sportive mood,
(I made them scan whene’er I could)
And several, the reverse of solemn,
Were printed in this very column.
Yet, when I wrote those little lays,
No bottles stood around on trays;
I could have mouthed, without confusion,
The mystic “British Constitution.”
I wrote the whole degrading bosh
Exclusively on lemon squash.
Then take my rivals—Swinburne, Kipling—
No one accuses them of tippling;
Each would refuse, with visage shocked, ale;
Neither could mix the simplest cocktail.
* * * * *
And, if you still need proof to show it,
Sir Wilfred Lawson is a poet.
P. G. W.
“Because a man began to compose a poem in his surgery a Bangor doctor certified that he was drunk.” (Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, January 7, 1905)
—John Dawson
Walker: Walker’s Rhyming Dictionary of the English Language, first published in 1775; Wodehouse probably had the 1902 edition revised and enlarged by J. Longmuir.
Sir Wilfrid Lawson: 2nd Baronet of Brayton, (1829–1906), Liberal politician and temperance campaigner.