Just... brilliant.

"I am surrounded by imbeciles and ignorant fools !" - I cannot remember who said this ( I think it was some Dark Lord or the other ) , but, although the statement is repititive, it is exactly what I feel like saying right now - its quite sad. I went to a friends place today, and found a book of poetry by Ogden Nash - I was particularly impressed by one poem, and when I told her about it, it turned out that she had never even heard of Ogden Nash ! Mbleh !
Anyway, as the story goes, the poet was once ill, suffering from some ( surely !) virulent pathogen, judging by the amount of pain that he was feeling, and so, he called a Doctor, hoping that he would be able to give him something for the pain. The Doctor, however, after examining our poet, quietly informed him that it was nothing more than a common cold. The Reply was published some time later :

Go hang yourself, you old M.D,!
You shall not sneer at me.
Pick up your hat and stethoscope,
Go wash your mouth with laundry soap;
I contemplate a joy exquisite
In not paying you for your visit.
I did not call you to be told
My malady is a common cold.
By pounding brow and swollen lip;
By fever's hot and scaly grip;
By those two red redundant eyes
That weep like woeful April skies;
By racking snuffle, snort, and sniff;
By handkerchief after handkerchief;
This cold you wave away as naught
Is the damnedest cold man ever caught!

Give ear, you scientific fossil!
Here is the genuine Cold Colossal;
The Cold of which researchers dream,
The Perfect Cold, the Cold Supreme.
This honored system humbly holds
The Super-cold to end all colds;
The Cold Crusading for Democracy;
The Führer of the Streptococcracy.

Bacilli swarm within my portals
Such as were ne'er conceived by mortals,
But bred by scientists wise and hoary
In some Olympic laboratory;
Bacteria as large as mice,
With feet of fire and heads of ice
Who never interrupt for slumber
Their stamping elephantine rumba.

A common cold, gadzooks, forsooth!
Ah, yes. And Lincoln was jostled by Booth;
Don Juan was a budding gallant,
And Shakespeare's plays show signs of talent;
The Arctic winter is fairly coolish,
And your diagnosis is fairly foolish.
Oh what a derision history holds
For the man who belittled the Cold of Colds!

Now THIS is TALENT. Why could we not study this, instead of Small Scale Reflections on a Great House, or The Blessed Damozel ?

To Wrath ! To Ruin ! And some of Tolkien's Poetry the next time !
- Debayan Gupta .