Machine Poetry - A poem by Ellen P. Allerton

Machine Poetry.

I sit me down to make a batch of rhymes;
I've nothing in particular to say;
'Tis just to turn a crank and count the times^__
Such poetry is ground out every day.

The papers teem with it, why shouldn't I
Help swell this tone that current poets sing?
'Tis neither soft and sweet, nor grand and high,
And has no meaning^__just an empty ring.

I fill my hoppers with the lightest trash,
Not throwing in one grain of thought or passion,^__
No bright idea, lest its sudden flash
Should startle^__for ideas are out of fashion.

I talk of love, of course, but in such style
That anyone can see there's nothing in it;
I turn off love-sick stanzas while I smile,
And wonder if some fool will think I mean it.

I screech, high-keyed, in wild and mournful tones,
A wail for some one false or long departed:
I rake the past, and over dead, dry bones
Utter a dirge that sounds quite broken-hearted.

Meanwhile, but few are ever taken in
By all this stuff: most people know too well
The spurious tricks of rhyme, its crying sin;
Its make-believe, its hollow, sounding shell.

I tell my "poet's lie" without offense,
For tis a sort of sickly-solemn joke
That none believes in who has common sense;
It takes so little fire to make a smoke.

Long-suffering public, take my grist of chaff^__
At your own price^__we surely shall not quarrel.
It will not make you weep or laugh;
But then, you know, 'twill help fill up the "barrel."

^__Ellen P. Allerton.

Walls of Corn and Other Poems
Ellen P. Allerton
(Hiawatha, KS: Harrington Printing Company. 1894)
Pages 199-200