Tag Archives: h l mencken

An Overgrown Child

American Digest banner –  “A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.” – H. L. Mencken

 

 

Where did I put my tinkertoys

Who took my ball and glove

How dare I write of girls and boys

Too young to know of love

Throw out all your Rudyard Kiplings

That mildish childish man

Who wrote of war and Empire’d things

Insisting that you can

And what of songs that Tennyson sang

About fair Camelot

In words that down the ages rang

That will not be forgot

Of course I’m not a poet so

It’s all right if I rhyme

But if I’m just a child I know

I’ve been here a good long time