what's lost, and what's imperishable

one Porlock merchant rapping at the door
destroyed the fabled walls of Xanadu
if he'd been there, the epic Trojan war
would have been won before the week was through
the story's grand because a ten-year siege
let Telemachos grow into a man,
Peleides to quarrel with his liege,
and--one by one--hew down grave Priam's clan
the Jericho pericope's too slight
to hold an audience for very long
but Homer kept his rapt through a fortnight
attentive to his many-textured song
that Porlock merchant died, and left no name
but literati never can forget
how Coleridge bequeathed him this small fame
for interrupting to collect a debt
a poet's wrath extends beyond the grave
when text he's entered's lost before it's saved