sonnet to the tub

With a little licence from good old Bill........


Shall I compare thee to a roughshod clincher?
Thou art more silky and more smooth.
Rough roads do shake oe’r darling Lancashire,
And summer’s lease do ease to cross season.
Sometime too hard the rim doth hit,
And often his oath be ‘shit’;
And every fair cotton sidewall doth decline,
By chance, or nature’s changing course at Boggart.
But thy eternal grandeur shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair rolling resistance;
Nor shall death brag when thou roll’st thine tub,
When down in A and E thou fester,
So long as men (and women) can breathe or eyes can see,
So long live the tub, and so say me.