At a soiree PRINCE ANDREI and PIERRE
In their own different fashions prepare
      For War! ANDREI’s posh
      While the ROSTOVS seem gauche*
And DOLOKHOV’s bad, so beware!

If you’d like to know the true costov
Land Management, don’t ask a ROSTOV.
      Pierre duels**. Austerlitz
      Sees Andrei blown to bits
And that’s Book 2 more or less tossedov.

Dumped by NATASHA, ANDREI’s jaded.
PIERRE’s idealism has faded
      Though now the book’s more
      Or less about War
Because BONAPARTE has invaded.

NAPOLEON retreats with PIERRE.
ANDREI dies of his wounds, beyond care,
      First forgiving NATASH
      And so – bish bosh bash! –
She now marries PIERRE! The End! Yeah!

Epilogue
Some survive. Others take early baths,
And TOLSTOY says History’s like Maths...


* In translation this doesn’t quite rhyme,
But this book’s bloody thick! Give it time!
** Does it matter that PIERRE’s embracin’
e sinister life of the Mason?

Every morning just wearing his socks
TROLLOPE wrote, then chased after a fox
      Whilst administ’ring The Post
      In which role he could boast
He invented the red pillar box!*

He wrote of the Church’s estate
In ways I’ll now seek to truncate:
      Thoughts of Deans’ daughters’ knickers
      And low plots by vicars
Dominate these books, in sextuplate.

If that’s all too mitre-y and chalice-r,
Instead you can read of the PALLISER
      Clan! (Gets quite soapy
      And plotwise just dopey
Does Victorian Lit get much Dallas-er?)

Nonetheless several very well read
Statesman have publicly said
      That these books are so neat
      Nothing else can quite beat
Curling up with a TROLLOPE in bed!**




* This self-serving ruse shows some brass neck,
Just to post him his royalty cheque!
** Thus spake PM HAROLD MACMILLAN:
Unlike PROFUMO he was just chillin’.

As to poets who hid under rocks –
Miss EMILY DICKINSON’s Frocks
      Were white – Short, her Verse –
      Her manners – quite terse –
With a ticked ‘No Publicity’ box...

In Shropshire there once was this lad
Who was laddish and wild and quite bad*
      And dead at one-and-twenty
      Exactly like plenty
Of others. How terribly sad.




* I think we’ll gloss over the thrills
   To be had by blue remembered hills....

It is an unquestionable tenet
That Prosperity’s not for you when it
      Turns out Life’s Lottery’s
      Seen you born in the Potteries.
Unless, of course, you’re ARNOLD BENNETT.