The parody was quite delightful, and I can well remember the intense joy
with which I heard of it and my surprise that the author thought it
necessary to apologise for it. He apparently thought I might be hurt. It
ran something like this:
My scout
Is out.
My scout is never in.
I am growing very thin,
And pale--
etc., etc.
Our verse efforts, though not very good in themselves, had a good
result.
A rival clique of poets, led by Mackail and Beeching, put forward a
little pamphlet of their own, full of what was really exquisite verse of
the Burne-Jones, Morris, Swinburne type. In the following term, however,
the two poetic schools amalgamated under a common editorship, adopting
the name of _Waifs and Strays_ as their title. To almost every
issue of the _Waifs and Strays_ I contributed, though I think my
Editors sometimes were rather horrified at my sending in so much blank
verse, and blank verse of what the Elizabethans called a "licentious"
type, that is, not governed by strict rules.
Besides this, my poems were apt to be too long. I had a friendly
conflict over them with Beeching. It showed, however, the open-
mindedness of the Morrisean editors that my poetry, though so entirely
different to their own, was not only accepted but that they showed great
sympathy with my experiments in unrhymed measures.
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