"KEATS TOOK SNUFF."

"Keats took snuff.... It has been established by the

praise-worthy editorial research of Mr. Burton Forman."





So "Keats took snuff?" A few more years,

When we are dead and famous--eh?

Will they record our pipes and beers,

And if we smoked cigars or clay?

Or will the world cry "Quantum suff"

To tattle such as "Keats took snuff"?



Per aps some chronicler would wish

To know what whiskey we preferred,

And if we ever dined on fish,

Or only took the joint and bird.

Such facts are quite as worthy stuff,

Good chronicler, as "Keats took snuff."



You answer: "But, if you were Keats--"

Tut! never mind your buts and ifs,

Of little men record their meats,

Their drinks, their troubles, and their tiffs,

Of the great dead there's gold enough

To spare us such as "Keats took snuff."



Well, go your ways, you little folk,

Who polish up the great folk's lives;

Record the follies that they spoke,

And paint their squabbles with their wives.

Somewhere, if ever ghosts be gruff,

I trust some Keats will "give you snuff."



_The Globe_, London.