Page 83 - Poetry-Books

Who has ambition to do what he can’t,
And who for fame in hopelessness doth pant.
This was the scheme that came to me that day,
Relief most welcome in my great dismay.
It can be worked. ‘T is possible to make
A profitable venture on small stake.
All that it needs is brains, a little brass,
Of funds enough for rent, a boy, and gas,
And postage stamps, a girl to write in type.
The shares are ready, and the time is ripe.
The fruit is on the tree awaiting him
Who’ll come and boldly pluck it from the limb.
No influence is needed; not a bribe
To any one is payable. Subscribe!
Such is the plan, such its intrinsic worth,
Who comes in now in ten years owns the earth.

— John Kendrick Bangs (Century Magazine, 1893)

Ballade of Slips

To-day Art comes at Traffic’s call,
A victim to commercial sway,
When poet, novelist, and all
Who give their budding genius play,
Must wait for magazines to say
If Fortune’s scale shall rise or dip;
And, good or bad, they all convey
Their answer in a printed slip.

The singer, thinking to enthrall
The whole world with his measured lay,
Soon finds that many slips befall

~ 81 ~