EXERCISE IN PREPARATION FOR A PINDARIC ODE

TO CARL HUBBELL

Long after #Archibald Macbeth has chased
His last bandwagon,
long long after
Many a boy scout on the shores of Hamburg
Has learned at last what the Prince of Boy Scouts meant -

"My wife Eleanor
Hates war -
I hate Eleanor,
I Hate War!"

"I am a Pacifist: We are all Pacifists!"
(Macdeath has murdered Truth; out, out, brief Honor!
A poet's but a poor opportunist
Full of pastiche and echo!)

Long after, Carl,
You will be fabulous: may my long show how!

If but our culture were less disunited,
A poet such as I, "young and promising",
Might hope to know so great an athlete

(Can I discuss these things with Philip Slav,
Or John ('There''ll Always Be an England') Berryman?
Would Dwight MacNeice MacPherson care at all?
Or Harry (Holier-Than-Thou) Levin?)

Carl! I saw you once go into Loew's,
After you lost 1-0 to Paul Dean,
And wished to say, Tough luck, Carl Old Boy!
But the words choked in my throat -
How many times
From Coogan's Bluff as from the walls of Troy
Have I not gazed between the crevices
Of the upper and lower grandstand down below,
In desperate interest and open fear
That a short single would break up the game!

- Spring, immoral Spring, is now upon us,
And in my twenty years of tense devotion
To the great Giant cause, this is the worst
Spring I remember. Bill Jurges, racked
With headaches, on his way to Mayo Clinic,
Terry without a shortstop! But worst of all
The power of the Dodgers who so long
Competed with the comic strips,
Alas, Babe Herman,
Ototototoi! Ototototoi! you who once tried
To steal second with the bases loaded!
Is it a wonder then that I am moved to taunt