If you can find, within, a single line
To give you pleasure, then the pleasure's mine;
But if you fail and whine, or _josh_ like Billings,
You might (I say you _might_!) get back your shillings.
But better yet! Bestow this Book of Verses
On some friend-foe you love with hate and curses,
And your revenge will be attained thereafter
For, when he reads it, he will die with laughter.
And, Cheerful Reader, if this work contains
A soporific for your bulging brains
So that you'll _rave about it_ to your neighbors,
I'll feel repaid for all rebuffs and labors.
Though "Wisdom sometimes borrows, sometimes lends,"
You'll borrow trouble lending this to friends;
But earn my thanks if, when you've praised or shown it,
You'll sit upon the lid and never loan it:
For ev'ry copy sold, thru friends or slapbacks,
Just puts Mo'lasses on my buckwheat flapjacks.
And, Critic Friend, who halts Ambition's flight
And ties the can to Aspiration's kite,
Pray recollect that when _you_ plied the pen
And had some stuff accepted now and then,
Your tales, O! Henry, did not prove inviting
Or else you'd be no Cynic but still writing.