["I'm a Stranger Here Myself" is easy] on one's immediate reflexes, it has … cunningly delayed surprises, it has inexhaustible resources and it takes its time to display them. It comes, as I think, at a critical time. Every one has made capital out of Nash's original eccentricities in rhyme. Its schema is well known: is there a rhyme for "gospel"? Of course, it's Pospel. His scherzos and scherzandos are less well understood. They consist of making amiable sport, in the same outré rhymes, of our daily habits, complexes, prejudices and ordinary idiocies. One of our habits, complexes, prejudices and idiocies is to believe in Duty. Wordsworth wrote an Ode to Her—Stern Daughter of the Voice of God. Mr. Nash's response is not yet quite as famous ("Kind of An Ode to Duty")….

It is smart; but it also has a stamina. No one need think that a...