In youth when oft my muse was dumb,
 My fancy nighly dead,
To make my inspiration come
 I stood upon my head;
And thus I let the blood down flow
 Into my cerebellum,
And published every Spring or so
 Slim tomes in vellum.

Alas! I am rheumatic now,
 Grey is my crown;
I can no more with brooding brow
 Stand upside-down.
I fear I might in such a pose
 Burst brain blood-vessel;
And that would be a woeful close
 To my rhyme wrestle.

If to write verse I must reverse
 I fear I'm stymied;
In ink of prose I must immerse
 A pen de-rhymèd.
No more to spank the lyric lyre
 Like Keats or Browning,
May I inspire the Sacred Fire
 My Upside-downing.