Children! Children!

Be there a dispute about who has more CLASS,

A flame war betwixt a lad and a lass

O'er poetry, yet, thy grudges to nurse,

Then put thy hot plaints into eloquent verse.

'Tween right and wrong, thy PUBLIC cannot judge,

For the facts of the dispute lie buried in sludge

Of charge, counter-charge, insult, and hoot,

So that both thy images wear disrepute.

'Tis not for the PUBLIC to declare win or lose;

We care for thee both -- we care not to choose.

We read thy attacks, denunciations, roaring,

By now we respond with a yawn: This is BORING.

'Twould show greatest CLASS shouldst thou cease and desist

And e'en store away weapons, make peace and resist

The bellicose urges threatening to make lame

The brains that bring forth these foul charges in shame.

But if failing the test of CLASS in this call

Ye be determined to render thy own statures small,

Then please show at least this much CLASS and no worse

By venting thy heartburn and spleen with a verse.

For verse is a root of thy feud, is not it?

And a rhyme's CLASS the PUBLIC can judge who has got it

And perhaps prose-to-poetic conversion will cool

The ardor that makes you appear the fool.

Hurl at thy opponent sonnets and quattrains,

Deploy iambic pentameter in your warlike campaigns,

For if you must slang thy foe with charges outrageous

Then soften the blow by expression most gracious

And let the PUBLIC enjoy value entertaining --

But, again, 'twould be better were mad passions waning.

In any event, CLASS, not shown, indeed is slain

By either combatant continuing in this vein.