IMPROMPTU TO CAPTAIN RIDDELL
ON RETURNING A NEWSPAPER
Ellisland, Monday Evening
I
Your News and Review, Sir,
I've read through and through, Sir,
With little admiring or blaming:
The Papers are barren
Of home-news or foreign—
No murders or rapes worth the naming.
II
Our friends, the Reviewers,
Those chippers and hewers,
Are judges of mortar and stone, Sir;
But of meet or unmeet
In a fabric complete
I'll boldly pronounce they are none, Sir.
III
My goose-quill too rude is
To tell all your goodness
Bestow'd on your servant, the Poet;
Would to God I had one
Like a beam of the sun,
And then all the world, Sir, should know it!
