Literary Squabbles

Alfred Tennyson


AH God! the petty fools of rhyme
    That shriek and sweat in pigmy wars
Before the stony face of Time,
    And look’d at by the silent stars:

Who hate each other for a song,
    And do their little best to bite
And pinch their brethren in the throng,
    And scratch the very dead for spite:

And strain to make an inch of room
    For their sweet selves, and cannot hear
The sullen Lethe rolling doom
    On them and theirs and all things here:

When one small touch of Charity
    Could lift them nearer Godlike state
Than if the crowded Orb should cry
    Like those who cried Diana great:

And I too talk, and lose the touch
    I talk of. Surely, after all,
The noblest answer unto such
    Is perfect stillness when they brawl.


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