Some like drink
In a pint pot,
Some like to think;
Some not.
Strong Dutch cheese,
Old Kentucky rye,
Some like these;
Not I.
Some like Poe,
And others like Scott,
Some like Mrs. Stowe;
Some not.
Some like to laugh,
Some like to cry,
Some like chaff;
Not I.
II
Here, perfect to a wish,
We offer, not a dish,
But just the platter:
A book that’s not a book,
A pamphlet in the look
But not the matter.
I own in disarray:
As to the flowers of May
The frosts of Winter;
To my poetic rage,
The smallness of the page
And of the printer.
III
As seamen on the seas
With song and dance descry
Adown the morning breeze
An islet in the sky:
In Araby the dry,
As o’er the sandy plain
The panting camels cry
To smell the coming rain:
So all things over earth
A common law obey,
And rarity and worth
Pass, arm in arm, away;
And even so, to-day,
The printer and the bard,
In pressless Davos, pray
Their sixpenny reward.