The poetic oeuvre of JOHN DONNE
Can be summed up as 'Get one in, son!
	Take yer knickers off, love!'
	So when Our Lord Above
Intruded it ruined the fun.

As a youth John purred 'Baby, you're sweet!'
And spreadeagled the chick on a sheet!
	With the air turning blue
	He'd exhale a loud 'Phew!'
And compose a poetic conceit.

When the sun rose (the busy old fool)
Our boy was still clutching his tool
	With wit and some menace
	And crying, 'My pen is
Mightier than pork swords, as a rule.'

Yet through CARNAL LUSTS ManKind falls
So Donne became Dean of St. Paul's
	And now played a new part
	'Cos God battered his heart
And presumably chopped off his balls...

We are not yet done with JOHN DONNE;
Left him underdone; merely a pun.
	But listen up, sister:
	Dean Donne's a tongue twister!
(And not just like that, though that's fun...)

Each dawn Dean John Donne donned dun hose
Which Donne darned when it ripped to expose
	Donne's dangling dong,
	So he droned this sad song:
'The world's whole sap's sunk, I suppose.'

'But Death be not proud!' with a shout
Dean Donne deigned to hang it all out!
	Donne denied, drowned in din,
	This denoted a sin:
'New philosophies call all in doubt!'

'No man is an island!' quoth he.
Then Donne downed double scotch for his tea!
	As Donne drooled down the dunnee
	A wit said, 'That's funny,
John Donne!  For the BELLS told for thee!!'

Metaphysicist ANDREW MARVELL
Put down his quill sighing, 'Oh swell!
	Where's my one chance of joy
	When my MISTRESS IS COY?
What are we to do?  Oh, 'Kin 'ell!

Had we but world enough, plus the time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime,
	But what's the point if
	We wait 'til we're both stiff?
'Cos the dead, luv, are well past their prime!

But at my back I always hear
Time's wing'd chariot hurrying near;
	Deserts of vast eternity
	Will scupper paternity
If we don't make haste right now, m'dear!

So come on, babe, take off that sweater!
If you like I can use this French letter
	'Fore I discharge my load!'
	(Though in MARVELL's own ode
I concede the last stanza reads better...)

With a loud Hanoverian whinny
The PRINCE REGENT (aka 'PRINNY')
	Bellowed 'Du Lieber Gott!
	Though I love WALTER SCOTT
Get me something to read that's more skinny!

I need a book where the plot runs quick!
Not GOETHE, for although that hun's slick,
	His style's too exacting
	And I need distracting
From that damn'd CAR-O-LINE OF BRUNSWICK!*

Each ROMANTIC POET's a bore!
And in my place you would deplore
	The verse of LORD BYRON (he
	Deploys too much irony
At this stage of th' Peninsular War)!

I want something like sugar frostin'!
Yet sharp and well written, and costin'
	No more than a guinea!'
	Demanded fat Prinny.
And that's how we get to JANE AUSTEN.

	* She stank.  He was fat and a sot.
	As to ROYAL WEDDINGS, that's yer lot!