Bacon advises, Shakespeare writes you songs, This passing entertainment in a hut Whose bare walls take your taste since, one stage And more, you arrive at the palace: all half real, And you, to suit it, 'less than real besides, In a dream, lethargic kind of death in life, That helps the interchange of natures, flesh Transfused by souls, and such souls! O, 't is choice! The real world through the false, - what do Is the old so ruined? you see You find you're in a flock Of the youthful, earnest, passionate, genius, beauty, Rank and wealth also, if you care for these, And all depose their natural rights, hail you, I veritably possess them banish doubt, And reticence and modesty alike! Why, here's the Golden Age, old Paradise ? Or new Eutopia! Here is life indeed, And the world well won now, found for the first time! And all this might be, may be, and with good help Surprising Hawthorne! Sludge does more than they, And acts the books they write: the more 's his praise! But why do I mount to poets? Take plain prose, - What makes his case out, quite ignores the rest. Fire into fog, making the past your world. There's plenty of "How did you contrive to grasp How on so slight foundation found this tale, The portly truth you here present us with? I was poor and threadbare when I wrote that book We writers paint out of our heads, you see!" 66 Ah, the more wonderful the gift in you, The more creativeness and godlike craft!" But I, do I present you with my piece, It's "What, Sludge? When my sainted mother spoke The verses Lady Jane Grey last composed About the rosy bower in the seventh heaven Where she and Queen Elizabeth keep house,- Cur, slave, and devil!"-eight fingers and two thumbs Well, if the marks seem gone, 'Tis because stiffish cock-tail, taken in time, Is better for a bruise than arnica. There, sir! I bear no malice: 't is n't in me. I know I acted wrongly : still, I've tried What I could say in my excuse, to show The devil's not all devil... I don't pretend, An angel, much less such a gentleman As you, sir! And I've lost you, lost myself, Lost all, 1-1-1-. . . . No- are you in earnest, sir? O, yours, sir, is an angel's part! I know What prejudice must be, what the common course Men take to soothe their ruffled self-conceit : Only you rise superior to it all! No, sir, it don't hurt much; it's speaking long And not a word to Greeley? Of the hand that saves me! One one kiss You'll not let me speak, I well know, and I've lost the right, too true! But I must say, sir, if She hears (she does) Your sainted. Well, sir, - be it so! ... That's, I think, My bed-room candle. Good night! Bl-l-less you, sir! R-r-r, you brute, beast, and blackguard! Cowardly scamp! I only wish I dared burn down the house And spoil your sniggering! man? You're satisfied at last? O, what, you're the You've found out Sludge? We'll see that presently: my turn, sir, next! To get this house of hers, and many a note ... ... Like these. I'll pocket them, however . . . five, ay, you gave her throat the twist, Or else you poisoned her! Confound the cuss! I don't know where my head is: what have I done? And called me cheat: I thrashed him, help? He howled for mercy, prayed me on his knees To cut and run and save him from disgrace : who could |