Food for Oblivion

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,

And did he stop and speak to you?

And did you speak to him again?

How strange it seems, and new!

—Robert Browning, “Memorabilia”

Why, yes, I did, before he'd gone,

Wishing he'd something better to do

Than furnish "this jingling food for oblivion

Called verse."* He might very well rehearse

Some native prince in India—or worse—

Employed at the East India Office?

Nothing superfluous, nothing wanting,

I said I'd see what might be done.

Finding no suitable commercial post,

Off Shelley went and drowned.

I saw him plain enough, a ghost.

His lines kept running jingling on—

At least they did in Browning's time.

Are they still read in yours and mine?

*In 1821, Shelley said this to his friend, and later executor, Thomas Love Peacock, a high official in the East India Office. He could not be employed by the Indian Civil Service, Peacock said, offering to find him something in business instead. Shelley decamped to Italy, however, and drowned sailing recklessly in the Mediterranean in July 1822. See J. B. Priestley, Thomas Love Peacock (English Men of Letters ser., 1927).

Wednesday, September 9, 2026