A Century of Parody and Imitation

by Unknown

But pacing Grub-street on a jaded hack;

What reams of foolscap, while your brains ye rack,

Ye mar to make again! for sure, ere long,

Condemn'd to tread the bard's time-sanction'd track,

Ye all shall join the bailiff-haunted throng,

And reproduce, in rags, the rags ye blot in song.

X.

So fares the follower in the Muses' train;

He toils to starve, and only lives in death;

We slight him, till our patronage is vain,