When e’er I doze, from vigils pale,
Dame Fancy locks me fast in jail.
Necessity, though I am no wit,
Compels me now to turn a poet;
Not born, but made, by transmutation,
And chymick process, call’d—starvation!
Though poet’s trade, of all that I know,
Requires the least of ready rhino,
I find a deficit of cash is
An obstacle to cutting dashes.