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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE PARADISE OF LECTURERS by ALFRED DENNIS GODLEY

First Line: WHEN YOU MIGHT BE A NAME FOR THE WORLD TO ACCLAIM, AND WHEN OPULENCE DAWNS ON
Last Line: ALL THE GOLD OF KLONDIKE ISN'T ANYTHING LIKE TO THE SUMS THAT ARE MADE IN THE STATES!
Subject(s): LITERATURE; TEACHING & TEACHERS; EDUCATORS; PROFESSORS;
WHEN you might be a name for the world to acclaim, and when Opulence dawns on the view,
Why slave like a Turk at Collegiate work for a wholly inadequate screw?
Why grind at the trade -- insufficiently paid -- of instructing for Mods. and for Greats,
When fortunes immense are diurnally made by a lecturing tour in the States?

Do you know that in scores they will pay at the doors -- these millions in darkness who grope --
For a glimpse of Mark Twain or a word from Hall Caine or a reading from Anthony Hope?
We are ignorant here of the glorious career which conspicuous talent awaits:
Not a master of style but is making his pile by the lectures he gives in the States!

With amazement I hear of the chances they lose -- of the simply incredible sums
Which a Barrie might have (if he did not refuse) for reciting @3A Window in Thrums:@1
Of the prospects of gain which are offered in vain as a sop to the Laureate's pride:
Of the price which I learn Mr. Bradshaw might earn by declaiming his excellent Guide.

Columbia! desist from soliciting those who your bribes and petitions contemn:
Though plutocrats scorn the rewards you propose, there are others superior to them:
Why burden the proud with superfluous pelf, who wealth in abundance possess,
When indigent Worth (I allude to myself) would go for substantially less?

For Europe, I know, to oblivion may doom the fruits of my talented brain,
But they're perfectly sure of creating a boom in the wilds of Kentucky and Maine:
They'll appreciate @3there@1 my illustrious work on the way to make Pindar to scan,
And Culture will hum in the State of New York when I read it my essay on @3An@1!

I've a scheme, which is this: I will start for the West as a Limited Lecturing Co.,
And the public invite in the same to invest to the tune of a million or so:
They will all be recouped for initial expense by receiving their share of the 'gates',
Which I venture to think will be truly immense when I lecture on Prose in the States.

Thus Merit will not be permitted to rot -- as it does -- on Obscurity's shelf:
Thus the national hoard shall with profit be stored (with a trifle of course for myself):
For lectures are dear in that fortunate sphere, and are paid for at fabulous rates, --
All the gold of Klondike isn't anything like to the sums that are made in the States!



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