When Parson, Doctor, Don,--
In short, when all the nation
Goes gaily off upon
Its annual vacation,
Their cares professional
No more avail to bind them:
They go at Pleasure's call
And leave their trades behind them.
Like them, departs afar
From England's fogs and vapours
The literary star,
The writer for the papers:
But not, like them, at home
Leaves he his calling's fetters:
Nought can release him from
The tyranny of Letters!
When classic scenes amid
For rest and peace he hankers,
_Amari aliquid_
His joys aesthetic cankers:
Whate'er he sees, he knows
He has to write upon it
A paragraph of prose
Or possibly a sonnet:
By mountain lakelets blue,
'Mid wild romantic heath, he's
A martyr always to
_Scribendi cacoethes_:
The Naiad-haunted stream
Or lonely mountain-top he
Considers as a theme
Available for "copy."
If on the sunlit main
With ardour rapt he gazes,
He's torturing his brain
For neat pictorial phrases:
When in a ship or boat
He navigates the briny
(And here 'tis his to quote
Examples set by Heine)
While fellow-passengers
Lie stretched in mere prostration,
He duly registers
Each horrible sensation--
He notes his qualms with care,
And bids the public know 'em
In "Thoughts on Mal de Mer,"
Or "Nausea: a Poem."
* * * *
Such is his earthly lot:
Nor is it wholly certain
If Death for him or not
Rings down the final curtain,
Or if, when hence he's fled
To worlds or worse or better,
He'll send per Mr St--d
A crisp descriptive letter!