Now my tale is nigh told, for my blood's running
cold, all my laurels lie yellow and faded.

"We have come to the boss;" [1] like a weary old
hoss, poor Pegasus limps, and is jaded.

And yet Mr. Editor, like a stern creditor, duns
me for this or that article,

Though he very well knows that of Verse and of
prose I am stripped to the very last particle.

What shall I write of? What subject indite of?
All my _vis viva_ is failing;

_Emeritus sum_; Mons Parnassus is dumb, and my
prayers to the Nine unavailing.--

Thus in vain have I often attempted to soften
the hard heart of Mr. Arenae;

Like a sop, I must throw him some sort of a
poem, in spite of unwilling Camenae.

* * * * * *

No longer I roam in my Johnian home, no more
in the "wilderness" wander;

And absence we know, for the Poet says so,