Let knowledge, that believes not, look:
Truth pins her trust on falsehood's sleeve,
While reason blunders by the book.
Then Mrs. Prig addressed me thus;
"Sir, if you'll be advised by me,
You'll leave the blessed babe to us;
It's my belief he wants his tea."

* * * * *




LAST WORDS OF A SEVENTH-RATE POET

Bill, I feel far from quite right--if not further: already the pill
Seems, if I may say so, to bubble inside me. A poet's heart, Bill,
Is a sort of a thing that is made of the tenderest young bloom on a fruit.
You may pass me the mixture at once, if you please--and I'll thank you
to boot
For that poem--and then for the julep. This really is damnable stuff!
(Not the poem, of course.) Do you snivel, old friend? well, it's nasty
enough,
But I think I can stand it--I think so--ay, Bill, and I could were it
worse.
But I'll tell you a thing that I can't and I won't. 'Tis the old, old
curse--
The gall of the gold-fruited Eden, the lure of the angels that fell.
'Tis the core of the fruit snake-spotted in the hush of the shadows of
hell,