WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE.
BY R. H. STODDARD.
He steals and imitates, with wiry note
The critics squeak, from Keats, and Tennyson,
Shelly, and Hunt, and Wordsworth, every one,
And many more whose works we know—by rote!
But how, good sirs, if God created him
Like unto these, though in their radiance dim?
Nothing in Nature's round is infinite;
The moulds of every kind are similar:
A flower is like a flower; a star a star;
And all the suns are lit with self-same light.
How can he help, since Nature points the way,
Following, if so he does, their noble school?
Or you, by birth and habit, knave and fool,
How can you help the trash you write—for pay?