WHEN, lady, you applaud my rhymes Appearing in the public prints, (As you have done a dozen times), I wince. A bead (or two) bepearls my brow; I modestly say "Pooh!" or "Tush!" I'd blush, I think, if I knew how To blush. Once, when your praise was too absurd, I spoke of Calverley. With vim And scorn you said: "I never heard Of him." Tottered my reason, shook my nerve, I stifled an uprising sob. "Has she," I wondered, "heard of Irv- In Cobb?" Take, lady, then, this blithesome book— My friend, philosopher, and guide— And don't, I pray, forget to look Inside. How fair the rhymes! The verse how fresh! Like "one clear harp in divers tones." Read "Flight," "Forever,"—oh, read "Prec- Ious Stones"! Here, all this treasured tome throughout, Shall you find undiluted joy. You, in your classic phrase, will shout "@3Oh, boy!@1" Yet pricks the thorn upon the rose; And lurks the wormwood in the cup: Calverley. ... Lady, how he shows Me up! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ABOVE HALF MOON by JAMES GALVIN COSMOPOLITE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON VOLUPTAS by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER by JOHN CROWE RANSOM AN ISLAND (SAINT HELENA, 1821) by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON |