ESPYGRAMS I
Credit: GAMES Magazine
March/April 1982
Willard R. Espy

Each Espygram below is a poem that contains at least two missing words, the letters of which are represented by asterisks. All the missing words in a given poem are composed of the same letters; their order has simply been re-arranged. Use the context of the lines, the meter, rhyme scheme, and titles provided to deduce one of the missing words in a poem, and you'll have a big clue to the others - they're simply anagrams of the first.

1)
Post-parental Plaint
When I ******** to be a father,
You ******* my willingness to even bother.
Now you *******; you never knew
I'd save the ******* just for you.

2)
The Fox and the Fowl
A fox asked a fowl to run loose
In the ******; he said, "Let's make a truce."
The fowl, sensing ******,
Hid deep in the manger.
Said the farmer, "That ******'s no goose."

3) Less Is More
The humbler ***** will do for me,
On ***** of greatness I need not be.
Though some men do to these heights mount,
And leave behind us no-accounts.
I like a man who ***** his best,
But effort ***** me; and so *  ****.

4) (Dis)order of the Garter
The ***** truth I must relate:
The queen won't wear her ***** of state.
It ***** her when her Royal Guard
Mistake her for a playing card.

Answers:

1. Aspired, praised, despair, diapers
2. Garden, Danger, Gander
3. Rites, tiers, tires, I rest
4. Sober, robes, bores