Does the press wait for copy? I shrink from the task; One boon from the Genius of fancy I ask; I want not a subject, I want not a rhyme, Nor metaphors florid, nor figures sublime; Additional leisure I sigh not to claim, And I feel I have @3more@1 than due justice from fame; I covet what cannot be borrowed or bought, The gift of a striking Original Thought. Could Memory desert me, I yet might succeed; Oh! why was I suffered the poets to read? Would that Campbell and Moore could at once be forgot! Would my mind were not haunted by Wordsworth and Scott! When some brilliant idea I have carefully nurst, I discover that "Shakspeare had thought of it first," And my path with such glittering phantoms is fraught That they really exclude one Original Thought! The claims of the Annuals I must not neglect, And two Magazines contributions expect, Before me the leaves of an Album unclose, (How I dread its bright pages of azure and rose,) I must write an Address for a Charity soon, And set some new words to an old German tune; And how in the world are these works to be wrought, When I cannot command one Original Thought! Well, I bow not beneath a peculiar disgrace, 'Tis the fate of our present poetical race, To live in the sun-shine of summers long o'er, "Pensioned off," on the wit and the wisdom of yore; But since Fancy her slights may yet please to repair, In her lottery still I will venture a share; And perhaps at this moment, the wheel may be fraught With that capital prize—an Original Thought. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PICTURES OF MEMORY by ALICE CARY ON THE DEATH OF MR. PURCELL by JOHN DRYDEN ONCE BY THE PACIFIC by ROBERT FROST GOLIATH AND DAVID by ROBERT RANKE GRAVES PIED BEAUTY by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS A CHRISTMAS FOLK-SONG by LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE |