In olden times the gifted bard found life a pathway rough and hard.
Starvation often was his goad, and some dark garret his abode, and
there, when nights were long and chill, he sadly plied his creaking
quill. He wrote of shepherds and their crooks, of verdant vales and
babbling brooks, displaying artfully his lore--while bailiffs
threatened at the door. And having wrought his best, he took with
trembling hands his little book to lay before some haughty lord, and
cringe around for a reward. Some times, perchance, he got a purse;
anon he only drew a curse; and often in a prison yard the weary,
debt-incumbered bard was herded with the squalid throng, and damned the
shining peaks of song.
The world moves on. The bard today finds life a soft and easy way. If
he elects to cut his hair he has the price and some to spare. Attired
in purple, he goes by with hard boiled shirt and scrambled tie, and you
can hear his bullion clank as he goes prancing to the bank. He writes
no tame, insipid books of dairy maids or shepherds' crooks, of singing
birds or burbling streams, or any other worn-out themes. Anon he
touches up his lyre to boost a patent rubber tire, or sings a noble
song that thrills concerning someone's beeswax pills. His lyre's a
wonder to behold; its frame is pearl, its strings are gold. His
sheetiron laurels never fade; the grocer's glad to get his trade.
While he can make the muses sweat he'll never go to jail for debt.
He calmly puts his harp away, when he has toiled a 10-hour day, and
softly sighs: "There's nothing wrong with this old graft of deathless
song!"