a scholar and polymath

A poem by Tim Robinson

(Preamble- Recently, a friend of mine wrote that he had planted a “copper beach” tree at his farm in the Huon Valley. Although a scholar and polymath, who may well have been deceived by the autocorrect function, he seemed to me to be deserving of a minor rebuke)

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When a friend of mine
from a southern clime

Wrote that he'd bought
a tree of the "copper beach" sort

I felt that I must set him straight
by penning this ballad for my old mate:

From their farm they saw the fearless copper beach
the boat he'd sailed upon Huon's reach

This craft was hewn from copper beech
with a sail that had a concave leech

By working assiduously the flooding tide
he came to the farm its owners to chide

He charged them with the trifling crime
of causing me to try to rime

A stretch of the river, with a grounding on sand;
and the side of a sail, with a tree from a foreign land.

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