Gaping for something new to make them stare.
I know the public taste, and profit by it;
But still to-day I’ve fears of our succeeding:
’Tis true they’re customed to no dainty diet,
But they’ve gone through an awful breadth of reading.
How shall we make our pieces fresh and new,
And with some meaning in them, pleasing too?
In sooth, I like to see the people pouring
Into our booth, like storm and tempest roaring,
While, as the waving impulse onward heaves them,