When you might be a name for the world to acclaim,
and when Opulence dawns on the view,
Why slave like a Turk at Collegiate work
for a wholly inadequate screw?
Why grind at the trade--insufficiently paid--of
instructing for Mods and for Greats,
When fortunes immense are diurnally made
by a lecturing tour in the States?
Do you know that in scores they will pay at the doors--these
millions in darkness who grope--
For a glimpse of Mark Twain or a word from Hall Caine
or a reading from Anthony Hope?
We are ignorant here of the glorious career
which conspicuous talent awaits:
Not a master of style but is making his pile
by the lectures he gives in the States!
With amazement I hear of the chances they
lose--of the simply incredible sums
Which a Barrie might have (if he did not refuse)
for reciting _A Window in Thrums_:
Of the prospects of gain which are offered
in vain as a sop to the Laureate's pride:
Of the price which I learn Mr Bradshaw
might earn by declaiming his excellent Guide.
Columbia! desist from soliciting those who
your bribes and petitions contemn:
Though plutocrats scorn the rewards you
propose, there are others superior to them:
Why burden the proud with superfluous
pelf, who wealth in abundance possess,
When indigent Worth (I allude to myself)
would go for substantially less?
For Europe, I know, to oblivion may doom
the fruits of my talented brain,
But they're perfectly sure of creating a boom
in the wilds of Kentucky and Maine:
They'll appreciate _there_ my illustrious work
on the way to make Pindar to scan,
And Culture will hum in the State of New York
when I read it my essay on 'An! [1]
I've a scheme, which is this:--I will start
for the West as a Limited Lecturing Co.,
And the public invite in the same to invest
to the tune of a million or so:
They will all be recouped for initial expense
by receiving their share of the "gates,"
Which I venture to think will be truly
immense when I lecture on Prose in the States.
Thus Merit will not be permitted to rot--as
it does--on Obscurity's shelf:
Thus the national hoard shall with profit be
stored (with a trifle of course for myself):
For lectures are dear in that fortunate
sphere, and are paid for at fabulous rates,--
All the gold of Klondike isn't anything like
to the sums that are made in the States!
[1. Transcriber's note: In the original book, the two characters
preceding the exclamation mark are the Greek "Alpha" and "nu". They
appear to be preceded by the Greek rough-breathing diacritical, making
the three characters together rhyme with "Maine", two lines earlier.]