Sonnet on Baker Street

Christopher Morley on Sherlock Holmes; also in Profile by Gaslight

Quick, Watson, quick! (he says) the game’s afoot:
Perhaps it’s only Scandal in Bohemia,
Or maybe Speckled Band, or Devil’s Root,
Or famous sleuth who’s dying of Anaemia–
The Dancing Men, Chicago’s smartest crooks
Have given us the code: we’ll fool that party: —
These are not merely episodes in books,
But the Crusade of Holmes and Moriarty.

So bring the fiddle and the dressing gown,
And Mrs. Hudson, and brave Scotland Yard,
And Watson by the jezail bullet lamed–
We rattle in a hansom back to Town.
If this is fancy, history’s debarred:
If this is fiction, let fact be ashamed.