[Editor: This poem by William Blocksidge (also known as William Baylebridge) was published in Songs o’ the South (1908).]
Verbosity Astray
’Tis sad to hear a man’s misborn supernals,
Whose tittering friends but think, the while they stare,
A lexicon must lie in his internals,
But doth abort in gaining open air.
Source:
William Blocksidge, Songs o’ the South, London: Watts, 1908, p. 78
Editor’s notes:
doth = (archaic) does
lexicon = the vocabulary of a language, of a subject or field of study, or of a person or a group; a list of words, a dictionary
supernal = of or relating to, or emanating from, the sky or heaven; celestial, heavenly; divine, exalted, extremely good, exquisite, superlative
’tis = (archaic) a contraction of “it is”
verbosity = the state of being verbose, using many more words than is necessary or appropriate, using excessive wordiness
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