A Minor Poem

‘I cannot enjoy one poem by Shelley and am delighted by every line of William Barnes, but I know perfectly well that Shelley is a major poet, and Barnes a minor one.’ - WH Auden, Nineteenth-Century Minor Poets

Am I a hedonist to say
that pleasure’s all there is, really?

To read alone is worthy of the cause.
Is that a statement so profane?

I shall confess, my Lord, I just don’t care,
when all’s been writ, who holds the gilded glove.

I’ll salt my sweet ambrosia with pulp.
And you can say I lard my soul with crap.

Yet in reading, the soul is forged.
Just never when its hand is forced.