Mushrooms to Ozonides

   I had been planning to entertain you with several comic poems, such as Nothing to Wear, or some Australian classics, like The Integrated Adjective, or The Spider by the Gwydir. However, it seems some other well-read bloggers have provided the service for me. Instead, I shall quote a poem you probably haven't seen before. It comes from a small book by the Rev. E. L. Mascall, itle Pi in the High, The Faith Press, London, 1959. The footnotes are in the original.

          A False Trail

by E. L. Mascall

With what delight thy leaves we scan,
Encyclopaedia Britann-
Ica, of which the Fourteenth Ed.
Is much the best, so it is said.
It has a transatlantic touch,
But not, like later eds., too much.
Each volume bears, in chaste design,
Its sweet content upon the spine.
Thus I may range with Vol. 19
from Raynal unto Sarreguemines.
Sarsparilla taketh me
(Vol. 20) unto Sorcery.
In 21, dark horrors hinting,
Sordello leads to Textile Printing.
And so I pass, till 24,
Proclaiming knowledge is no more,
Staves off the wearied soul's collapse
With hosts of indices and maps.