And new vocations you unfold,
Wonder on wonder heaping,
Hell-banging for the over-bold,
And toffee-cavern keeping.

With you we hatch the pasty snipe,
And all undaunted face
Huge fish of unfamiliar type--
Bush-pike and bubble-dace;
Or, fired by hopes of lyric fame,
We deviate from prose,
And make it our especial aim
Bun-sonnets to compose.

I wonder did the ancients prove
Responsive to your spell,
Or, riveted to Reason's groove,
Against your charms rebel.
And yet some senator obese,
In Rome long years ago,
May have misnamed a masterpiece
_De Gallo bellico_.

We know there were heroic men
Ere AGAMEMNON'S days,
Who passed forgotten from our ken,
Lacking a poet's praise;
But, though great Metaphasiarchs
Have doubtless flourished sooner,
I'm sure their raciest remarks