University of Virginia Library

Buy your books, sir, and read them? Nay, not if we know it.
Rather starve the whole brood—poetaster and poet!
If you and your fellows must splash us with verse
From a stagnant Peirene, to drink it were worse.
Ay, not though we squander our shillings to swill
At the rubble-fed bookstall's perennial rill,
And trample each other to pounce on the prize,
When the flesh-prophet caters for prurient eyes.
Time was when a poet was deemed rara avis;
Now they babble on bough like the merle or the mavis.
One or two in a lifetime was all very well;
But who's to keep pace when some sixty break shell?
True, the painters outswarm you as twenty to one,
Year by year, till their canvas would curtain the sun.
But that craves no thinking, yields something to show,
Has an air so æsthetic; so, gaily we go
To the great colour-crushes, and stare through our part,
Winning cheap reputation as lovers of art.
Then, too, there is music: that tickles our ears
With a tender shampooing, that moves us to tears;
The meaning lies hidden, but somehow it's sweet,
So we crowd into concerts, ten shillings a seat.
Yes, our pleasure we purr, our approval we clap
When some brave singer turns on the tremolo-tap,
And those simply wade ankle-deep in our money
Who can write, sing, or play what is clever and funny.
But you, who would have us look inward, give ear
Unto vague spirit-voices the flesh cannot hear,
Purge sense of its grossness, strip wealth of its lure,
In the soul and in Nature seek charms that endure;
To the old mythic virtues look backward, and scan
How woman's love wakens the God in a man;
Through the roar of life's labour find silence and ease
In the thought of high mountains, and heaven over these;
Catch anon the far music of stars in their spheres,
Dive to life's hidden meaning through laughter and tears—
Oh, it's all very splendid, and high, and sublime,
But, to put the thing plainly, we can't spare the time;
Our palate affects not Pierian lore;
Till the Muses amuse us we count them a bore.
So be warned, Minor Poet, nor frown and look cross,
But take note, if you scribble 'twill be to your loss.

M. P.

Well, well, there are losses and losses. Suppose
That your loss were the greater, my Public. Who knows?