Fail To Plan

"I feel inspired", the poet said, "to lay down words to earn some bread". But words would not come to the starving bard and, although he tried really hard, the words he sought just would not come, 'though he tapped his head and bit his thumb. "I must sally forth for my inspiration and walk the bounds of this great nation. Surely then my pen will flow? I've nothing to lose, I'll give it a go!" He wandered as a mendicant, through village town and shire, and chanced upon a minstrel playing on a lyre. "What beauty's in the tune you play, mellifluous and mellow. Vouchsafe to me your secret, pray, whence comes your muse my fellow?" "Why, inspirations all around if you'll but look and see. The beauty in a meadow flower, the grandeur of a tree." Bolstered up with new ambition, the poet soldiered on, paying more attention now than he had ever done. He spoke of clouds 'like wild mares breath' and 'limpid streams' and 'mercurial rivers', 'witching woods' and 'dumpling children' and 'tremulous catkins shivers'. For a year and a day he stayed away before returning to his bothy, and, after a meal of rice and veal and a cup of steaming coffee, he sat down to write of the things he'd seen, the mountains majestic, the valley's of green. He flushed his memory banks of all that he'd seen and earnestly started to think. Putting pen to paper, and with a glint in his eye, he realised, he'd run out of ink!