Selected Shorts on Chess

Chess is such a noble game,

How it does the soul inflame!

Ever brilliant, ever new,

Surely chess has not its due;

Sad to say, ‘tis known to few!

An acrostic poem by W. Harris, 1882

Charming as the sweetest music;

High above the common reach,

Easy to the bright and wise;

Splendid in the hands of genius’

Such the royal game of chess.

A double acrostic, with identical letters starting and

Ending each line. W. A. Balentine, 1878

A solver, who lived at Devizes,

Had won a great number of prizes-

A dual or cook,

He’d detect at a look.

And his head swelled up several sizes.

A limerick, from the Chess Amateur,

October 1907

Like new-laid eggs, Chess Problems are,

Though very good, they may be beaten;

And yet, though like, they’re different far,

They may be cooked, but never eaten.

Poem by J.A. Miles, 1882

Suggested reading;

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