This is One of Those Poems

in which the title is, in fact, the opening line

and what appears to be the first line is really the second.

Failing to spot this literary device may cause the reader,

unnerved and confused, to give up halfway through

and turn to another poem with a titillating title.

Or, and this is more likely, throw the book across

the room vowing never to read poetry again.

The power of titles should never be underestimated.

‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is a good one.

‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’ is another.

‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’, however, is just showing off.

‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ fails on many counts,

I mean, who’s interested? Kipling’s ‘If–’? Iffy.

As for Shakespeare and his sonnets, 33? 84? 116?

Well, that’s just downright laziness.