 | The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith |  |
April, 18—
These were the first of the poems he read to me up in my room;
By and by others came, soon, like the coming of spring with its bloom;
And we are rich now and happy, and everything goes quite smooth;
All the newspapers praise him, but do not say half of the truth:
I keep them all in a book, and read them often alone;
They make me angry at times, when they speak in a critical tone,
But I am happy and proud, for now I am nobody's debtor,
Paying odd things with a verse which he writes me as fast as a letter.
He laughs at me, vowing that poets should never pay bills, but draw
At large on the shopkeeping world, exempt from all action at law;
Honouring bakers and butchers enough by eating their things;
For angels pay not a jot for repairing the plumes of their wings,
And bees are not charged by the flowers they visit for tapping the honey—
I am not quite sure what he means, but I know he is loose about money.
| The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith | |