Prolific authors, noble three,
I do my derby off to ye.
Selected, dear old chap, who knows
The quantity of verse and prose
That you have signed in all these years!
You've dulled how many thousand shears!
You've filled, at a tremendous rate,
A million miles of "boiler plate"—
A wreath of laurel for your brow!
A stirrup-cup to you—here's how!
And you, dear Ibid. Ah, you wrote
Too many things for me to quote,
Though Bartlett, of quotation fame,
Plays up your unpoetic name
More than he did to Avon's bard.
Your stuff's on every page, old pard.
Bouquets to you the writer flings;
You wrote a lot of dandy things.
And you, O last, O greatest one,
A word with you, and I have done
Your, dear Exchange, that ever floats
Around with verses, anecdotes,
And jokes. Oh, what a lot you sign
(Quite frequently a thing of mine).
Why, it would not be very strange
If I should see this signed—Exchange.
O favourite authors, wondrous three,
I do my derby off to ye!
To Quotation
(Caused by "The Ethics of Misquotation" in the
November Atlantic Monthly.)
Quotation! Brother to the Arts, assister
to the Muse!
When Bartlett from his study height unfurled
thine heaven-born hues,
The quotes were here, the quotes were there,
the quotes were all around,
For Bartlett like a poultice came to blow the
heels of sound.
Pernicious habit! One becomes a worse than
senseless block,
A bard that no one dares to praise and fewer
care to knock;
A sentence by a mossy stone, of quaint and
curious lore,
An apt quotation is to one and it is nothing
more.
Quotation! Ah, thou droppest as the gentle
rain from heaven,
Thy brow is wet with honest sweat and the
stars on thy head are seven.