V.
I would not be a virulent detractor
Of all the editors who say me nay,
Of each successful manager and actor
Who has declined (with thanks) my strongest play;
They may be men of taste and erudition,
But, if they understand (and do they not?)
The kind of thing in public requisition,
The public must require the baldest rot?
VI.
My manuscripts! before I burn or rend you
(Momentarily penitent and sane),
Methinks I will be rash enough to send you
Upon a final journey once again!
Your mute entreaties give me heart to fight on,
With fixed intent to find the “open door.”
My only difficulty is to light on
Some quarter where you have not been before!
VII.
And what of these supremely dismal verses?
They, too, shall be incontinently hurled—
Like many of their colour—on the mercies
Of this unkind and unpoetic world.
I will submit them, with a curt epistle,
To some sad editor’s regretful eye,
Sanguine, of course, yet, posting them, I’ll whistle
The strains of “Au revoir, but not good-bye!”
