Does the press wait for copy? I shrink from the task; One boon from the Genius of fancy I ask; I want not a subject, I want not a rhyme, Nor metaphors florid, nor figures sublime; Additional leisure I sigh not to claim, And I feel I have @3more@1 than due justice from fame; I covet what cannot be borrowed or bought, The gift of a striking Original Thought. Could Memory desert me, I yet might succeed; Oh! why was I suffered the poets to read? Would that Campbell and Moore could at once be forgot! Would my mind were not haunted by Wordsworth and Scott! When some brilliant idea I have carefully nurst, I discover that "Shakspeare had thought of it first," And my path with such glittering phantoms is fraught That they really exclude one Original Thought! The claims of the Annuals I must not neglect, And two Magazines contributions expect, Before me the leaves of an Album unclose, (How I dread its bright pages of azure and rose,) I must write an Address for a Charity soon, And set some new words to an old German tune; And how in the world are these works to be wrought, When I cannot command one Original Thought! Well, I bow not beneath a peculiar disgrace, 'Tis the fate of our present poetical race, To live in the sun-shine of summers long o'er, "Pensioned off," on the wit and the wisdom of yore; But since Fancy her slights may yet please to repair, In her lottery still I will venture a share; And perhaps at this moment, the wheel may be fraught With that capital prize—an Original Thought. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LITANY OF THE DARK PEOPLE by COUNTEE CULLEN POE'S COTTAGE AT FORDHAM by JOHN HENRY BONER TYRANNICK [TYRANNIC] LOVE: PROLOGUE by JOHN DRYDEN IRELAND; A SEASIDE PORTRAIT by JOHN JAMES PIATT LINES by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS |