A New Year's Resolution To Leave Dundee Comments

I must disagree with previous comments. This may be the best poem of 1893 (or 1892) that I have read.

Oh, I am dying of laughter here! If the reason the citizenry of Dundee mock him and laugh at him is because of the poetry he writes, oh my word, I am on their side... unless he washes up on our unsuspecting shores... oh, we're safe, he has passed on and is, poor soul, in heaven where they, being angels, try hard to stifle their laughter

McGonagall's writing is the perfect example of the difference between verse and poetry. He writes in verse but what he writes never rises above prose. The effect here is sad and rather pathetic.