Free Very Bad Poetry by Kathryn Petras Page B

with rust;
The cutter hung upon the wall
   ’Mid spider webs and dust.

WILLIAM B. TAPPAN
(1794-1849)
    A t the age of thirty-two, the Reverend William B. Tappan entered the service of the American Sunday School Union, and he continued working for them until he died. During this time, however, he also wrote poetry, over twelve volumes’ worth. As one might expect given his affiliation, his poems are all of unflagging moral rectitude commingled with enthusiastic, even bouncy, zeal. Tappan was prone to sermonizing in his verse, especially about such topics as the evils of alcohol. But even he succumbed to temptation when it came to the retelling of horrific disasters. He let his hair down by writing turgid poems such as his “Burning of the Orphan Asylum,” which talks about the “dear innocents—who fed the funeral pyre.” Yet the ever-sermonizing Tappan was always sure to find the moral issue hidden in a tragedy—and blatantly point it out to his readers.
Obey Your Parents
    Two brothers once, of merry mood,
   Were sporting in their simple play,
When, chafed and furious from the wood,
   A lion roared against his prey.
    Between them and the help they claimed,
   Was interposed a lofty wall;
And hark! beyond it, each is named—
   It is the anxious father’s call:
    “O, children haste! ye shall not fail
   Of safety with your sire and friend”;
“Folly,” said one, “for us to scale
   Yon stones, which men can scarce ascend.”
    “See you not that so rough the path,
   So high the wall, its topmost stone
Ere we could gain, the beast in wrath,
   Might rend and break us bone by bone.”
    “I,” said the other, “come what may,
   Will not despise our father’s call;
’T is safest always to obey,—
   I’ll strive to climb yon lofty wall.”
    He ran, and saw, when drawing nigh,
   A
ladder
reaching from its height;
Safe now, he turned a wistful eye,
   His mangled brother met his sight.
from
Song of the Three Hundred Thousand Drunkards in the United States
    Onward! though ever in our march,
   Hang Misery’s countless train;
Onward for hell—from rank to rank
   Pass we the cup again!
    We come! we come! to fill our graves,
   On which shall shine no star;
To glut the worm that never dies—
   Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!
from
The Last Drunkard
    He stood, the last—the last of all
   The ghastly, guilty band,
Whose clanking chains and cry of thrall
   Once rang throughout the land.
    ….
    A sound of moral agony;
   Upon his ear it fell;
A bitter and undreamed of cry,
   With mingled laugh of hell.
    ….
    It calls him! and, probation past,
   He shouts, “Ye Fiends, I come!
Open, foul pit, and take the last,
   The last doomed slave of Rum!”

REV. SAMUEL WESLEY SR.
(1660-1735)
    T he Reverend Samuel Wesley the elder is possibly best known as the father of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. But Rev. Samuel Wesley deserves to be remembered in his own right—even though his publisher (and friend), John Dunton, noted that “those that allow of no second-rate in [poetry] have endeavoured to lessen his reputation.”
    Although Wesley mainly wrote on religious topics, his first volume was much more esoteric. Published in 1685, it had the intriguing title
Maggots, or Poems on Several Subjects Never Before Handled.
Among the poems included are “On a Cow’s Tail,” “Three Skipps of a Louse,” and “A Tame Snake Left in a Box of Bran Was Devoured by Mice after a Great Battle”—subjects happily bearing out the promise of the volume’s title.
from
On Two Souldiers Killing One Another for a Groat
    Full doleful Tales have oft been told,
By Chimney warm in Winter cold,
About the Sacred Thirst for Gold;
   To hear em half ’twould mad ye.
    To Jayl how many Headlong run,
How many a hopeful Youth’s undone,
How many a vile ungracious Son
   For this has murder’d Daddy?
from
A Pindaricque on the Grunting of a Hog
    Freeborn Pindaric