Ne Negative Person

Ne Negative Person
2083

If you can not by chance,
Give a long song and dance
On Plato or Wagner or Shelley,
Or if you can’t think
In glid Maeterlinck
Or fluently talk Botticelli:
If each time you bark
A Rubens remark
At a long-hair-and-high-forehead dinner You’re sat on by those
Of the positive pose,
Try the negative one-It’s a winner

It’s worked in these ways;
Gaze on ali native plays
And show no approving emotion;
Inspect with sad eyes And deep, pensive sighs
All art from this side of the ocean; Observe with wan smiles American styles
In building and sculpture and letters: And when you speak, why, Distinctly imply
That the Zulus in taste are our betters

Don’t say much; ’tis best
To vaguely suggest- Just sigh and avoid explanations;
Look misunderstood
And all to the good
In the matter of mind decoration;
Then people will say Who note your blase
Condition and thoughtfulness mystic:
“That’s young Mr Blank- His mind is a tank
Of taste and of feeling artistic”