I've seen an average single bed;
I've seen an average garden-weeder;
I've seen an average cotton thread--
I've _never_ seen an average _reader_.


L'ENVOI


Most read of readers, if you've read
The works of any old succeeder,
You know that he, too, must have said:
"I've never seen an Average Reader."



Poesy's Guerdon

( * * * I do not believe a single modern English
poet is living to-day on the current proceeds of his
verse.--From "Literary Taste and How to Form it,"
by Arnold Bennett.)

What time I pen the Mighty Line
Suffused with the spark divine
As who should say: "By George! That's fine!"

Indignantly do I deny
The words of Arnold Bennett. Why,
Is this not English verse? say I.