The Romantic Test

I. Upon Wordsworth's setting foot upon the shores of France in November 1791

I landed lonely as a rain
On the land of Louis' reign;
Where the queen was a whore
And the king was a bore—
Revolution them did cause much pain.

II. Musings

I wandered long in Fountainbleu,
'Midst gardens green I thought of you,
What strange sights you must have seen,
When they put you in the guillotine!

III. Encounters

Along those mountains, misty, dewey,
I came across a lonesome Louis.
He offered me things from the patisserie,
I gave him up to the Committee.

IV. Reflections on the Nature of Revolution

Oh what joy is revolution, such progress, such evolution!
String them up in the Tuileries, gut them in the galleries!
Oh Marat! Oh Robespierre! Oh keepers of all that I hold dear,
Will you think me very silly if I offer you a Wordsworth Willy?

V. Syllabus

Teary-eyed Wollstonecraft,
Thomas Paine drunk and daft,
Pompous fart Edmund Burke,
Blake sunk in mire and murk,
Coleridge smashed on opium,
Percy Bysshe lazy bum,
Clare and Crabbe run amok,
Poor William stares in shock.



Copyright: DSM.