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AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Does the press wait for copy? I shrink from the task
Last Line: With that capital prize—an original thought.
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Maria; Abdy, Mira; M. A.
Subject(s): Creative Ability; Thought; Writer's Block; Writing & Writers; Inspiration; Creativity; Thinking


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 more 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.





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