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The Beginner
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| The Beginner written by Rudyard Kipling |
| A parody of Robert Browning's "Abt Vogler". First published in The Muse Among the Motors (1904). |
THE BEGINNER
(After he has been extemporising on an instrument)
(After he has been extemporising on an instrument)
- Browning.
- Browning.
Lo! What is this that I make — sudden, supreme, unrehearsed —
This that my clutch in the crowd pressed at a venture has raised?
Forward and onward I sprang when I thought (as I ought) I reversed,
And a cab like martagon opes and I sit in the wreckage dazed.
And someone is taking my name, and the driver is rending the air
With cries for my blood and my gold, and a snickering news-boy brings
My cap, wheel-pashed from the kerb. I must run her home for repair,
Where she leers with her bonnet awry — flat on the nether springs!
| This work is in the public domain in countries where the copyright term is the author's life plus 75 years or less. |
