Commentary

All The Awards Would Be Mine

Sandeep Balakrishna

Oct 30, 2015, 02:03 AM | Updated Feb 11, 2016, 08:47 AM IST


A satirical version of Andrew Marvell’s classic poem To His Coy Mistress dedicated to the artists and writers who are returning their accolades.

 

Had I but world enough, and time,

All the Awards would be Mine.

Why,

Had I but penned a paean

On Confounded Eminent Dunce

That once visit’th a village mud house,

Once sitt’th on the fence,

Once to Spain runs

Would I have perchance earned

Two pence.

For a Dunce.

 

Had I but world enough, and time,

All the Awards would be Mine.

 

Lesser literary lackeys pen putrid paeans,

Meant to pamper but

Them barbarous, poetic half-baked beans

Conjure visions of a coffin

Terrifying the desolate Queen.

 

Had I but world enough, and time,

All the Awards would be Mine.

 

All the ice of Antarctica

All the refrigerators of Rome

Haveth not the might to

Freeze the stellar reaches of mine genius

Whose velocity escapes Jupiter and reaches Uranus.

 

Had I but world enough, and time,

All the Awards would be Mine.

 

Oh and all the Awards would be Mine!

‘tis a travesty I live in a time

Where to earn two pence

I must needs at least fix a fence.

 

Had I but world enough, and time—

Oh is long gone that time!

The writer is the Director and Chief Editor, India Facts Research Centre, the author of Tipu Sultan: the Tyrant of Mysore, and has translated S.L.Bhyrappa's Aavarana from Kannada to English.


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