The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder :: :: University of Virginia Library

V—TO T. B. A.

IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF A BOOK OF PROSE

Your pretty book doth please me,
Of carks and cares doth ease me;
But don't forget, my boy,

126

Verse is your true employ.
And surely, Thomas Bailey,
In all this new-world mêlée
Too seldom comes the poet,
And when he does we know it!
Yes, no one else can do
The work that's play to you.
So spend your precious time in
Your master art of rhymin',
Then shall you keep the praise
Of these and future days.