Death Shall Have No Dim Onion

Shopping by woods this snowy eve,
I wonder why each word I read
gets muddled up, goes quite mad.
How did my eyesight get so bad?

I look at poems I once held dear
and find that they do not appear
to be the same as I once read-
two phrases in, I lose the thread.

Did Robert Browsing’s Duchess go
not Gentile Into That Good Night?
Was Robert Frosty in the snow?
Is ‘Tyger Tyger burping’ right?

Poor Percy Shelley’s really Pysshe
and Homer wrote the Ilibad.
Could Morgenstern recite his Fish?
Are Vasco Popadoms a fad?

Once Allen Ginseng’s primal Owl
drowned out the waving Stevie Sniff
but Hiya Watha! makes me scowl
like Ruddy Kipling’s iffy If.

Of all the joys of Muddle Age
myopia must head the queue.
I have to squint to read this page-
The Raver (Edgar Allen Poo).