The Poetry Corner

Love-All

By Ben Jonson

The decorously informative church Guide to Sex suggested that any urge could well be controlled by playing tennis: and the game provided also "many harmless opportunities for healthy social intercourse between the sexes." For weeks the drawings in the Guide misled me as to what went where, but nonetheless I booked the public courts and learnt the game with other curious youths of my age: and later joined a club, to lose six one, six love, in the first round of the Open. But the only girl I ever met had her "energies channelled" far too bloody "healthily", and very quickly let me know that love was merely another means of saying nil. It was not as though I became any good at tennis; either.