He listened awhile in silence, but at last the fire grew hot,
When he heard "The Lotus-Eaters" described as "luscious rot";
And he shouted out in the madness that is one of Truth's allies,
"Old TENNYSON'S little finger is thicker than all your thighs."
A hush fell on the tea-shop, and then the storm arose
As a chunk of old dry seed-cake took him plumb upon the nose,
And a cup, a generous jorum, of boiling cocoa nibs,
Hurled by a brawny Georgian, struck squarely on his ribs.
For several hectic minutes the air was thick with buns,
It was almost as bad, so he told me, as the shelling of the Huns,
But our gallant Tennysonian held on until a clout
In the eye from a metal teapot knocked him ultimately out.
A sympathetic waitress fled off to fetch the police,
Whose opportune arrival caused hostilities to cease,
And they carefully conveyed him to a hospital hard by
Where a skilful surgeon managed to preserve his wounded eye.
It was from the self-same surgeon that I subsequently learned
The first remark of the victim when his consciousness returned:--
"The Georgians may shine at shying the crumpet and the scone,
But as poets they're just No Earthly compared with TENNYSON."
He never got a medal for his exploit, or a star,
And his only decoration was an ugly frontal scar;
But still I hold him highest among heroic men,
This lone Victorian champion in the Georgian lions' den.
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