My Manuscripts

A certain dismal desk I own comprises
A literary morgue, a place of tears,
Where manuscripts of divers shapes and sizes
Repose—defiled with dust and canine ears.
They lie, awaiting ultimate cremation,
My slighted bantlings—poor, ill-treated pets!
Embodiments of blighted aspiration
And bitter editorial regrets!

II.

Which tale, which play, which poem is the poorest,
Where all have often been condemned as poor,
Which manuscript the most case-hardened tourist,
Where all have been on many a fruitless tour,
I cannot tell. Yet am I fain to wager
That none have been the cause of so much ire
As this—the stoutest, inkiest old stager,
That, in my heart of hearts, I still admire!

III.

The epics that, by some elusive magic,
Were turned at last to musical burlesques,
The comedies that daily grew more tragic
(Foredoomed to moulder in sepulchral skies);
The bright libretto, worthy of a Gilbert,
That shrunk into one lyric, which describes
What passed between the “Earwig and the Filbert”—
These and their like I treasure up in tribes!

IV.

I have composed heroics and didactics,
Completed thrilling dramas by the score,
I have adopted mercenary tactics,
And started lurid serials galore;
But seldom could I pen them as I planned them;
The plays developed strangely, scene by scene,
Till I was forced, at length, to brand them
As feeble skits on what they might have been!

I would not be a virulent detractor
Of all the editors who say me nay,
Of each successful manager and actor
Who has declined (with thanks) my strongest play;
They may be men of taste and erudition,
But, if they understand (and do they not?)
The kind of thing in public requisition,
The public must require the baldest rot?

IV.

VI.

My manuscripts! before I burn or rend you
(Momentarily penitent and sane),
Methinks I will be rash enough to send you
Upon a final journey once again!
Your mute entreaties give me heart to fight on,
With fixed intent to find the “open door.”
My only difficulty is to light on
Some quarter where you have not been before!

VII.

And what of these supremely dismal verses?
They, too, shall be incontinently hurled—
Like many of their colour—on the mercies
Of this unkind and unpoetic world.
I will submit them, with a curt epistle,
To some sad editor’s regretful eye,
Sanguine, of course, yet, posting them, I’ll whistle
The strains of “Au revoir, but not good-bye!”