Mutatis Mutandis

Here is a tale for children and their grannies:

There was a fool, a man who'd had his chances

But missed them, somehow; lost them, just for fancies,

Tag-ends of things with which he'd crammed crannies

Of his cracked head, as panes are crammed with paper:

Fragments of song and bits of worthless writing,

Which he was never weary of reciting,

Fluttered his mind as night a windy taper.

A witless fool! who lived in some fair Venice

Of his own building where he dreamed of Beauty:

Who swore each weed a flower the sorry pauper!

This would not do. Men said he was a menace

To all mankind; and, as it was their duty,

Clapped him in prison where he died as proper.