Verse by Max Goliard (November 1972)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure dome decree:

The zoning board got wind of this,

And socked him with a license fee.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I burn my candle at both ends

I did the same last night.

Con Ed can pay its dividends,

But can’t supply me light.

Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I know, I think.

Boise-Cascade Lumber, Inc.

Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight,

Subdued by an oil slick.

The tide is full, the moon shines bright,

And all of the fish are sick.

Emily Dickinson

I heard a fly buzz when I died

And can pollution’s fact give:

I was felled by a pesticide,

And the fly was radioactive.

[Max Goliard is a pseudonym for one of our regular columnists.— Ed.]