Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A PROSPECTUS, by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A PROSPECTUS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Mr. Ananias bounce
Last Line: Mr. Ananias bounce.
Subject(s): Magazines


Mr. Ananias Bounce
Has the honor to announce
The first issue of The Day,
Number Naughty-Naught, Broadway.
Nothing ever seen as yet
Touches it; videlicet:
Its supreme desire shall be
Not for size, but brevity.
All the news, with sober sense,
It will test, assort, condense,
Throw the straw and husks away,
Give the kernel in The Day.
When it does not chance to know,
It will dare to tell you so.
When a thing should not be told,
Though editions might be sold,
Though its readers' optics itch,
It will scorn to handle pitch.
What it honestly believes,
It will wear upon its sleeves,
Though the whole two-cented town
Shall unite to "call it down."
As to parties, it will dare
Get its truth from everywhere.
As to news, it will report
More the church and less the court,
More the good that men have done
Than the sin beneath the sun.
It will not attempt to be
A diurnal library:
Comic Weekly, Art Review,
Fashion Journal, Sporting, too,
Literary Magazine,
Scientific Bulletin,
Children's Paper, Kitchen Guide,
Sermon Digest, Poet's Pride!
Thus it will have time to be
Quite a Newspaper. you see!
As for its advertisements,
(Listen, O ye men of sense!)
Fake or honest, large or small,
It will print no "ad" at all.
Now that it may meet with ease
Probable emergencies --
Not a buyer in the crowd --
It is suitably endowed.
Thus its virtue will endure;
Thus its courage we insure;
For if buyers, in the end,
Fail, for foe or lack of friend,
We're prepared on any day
Just to give the sheet away!
Knowing how success succeeds,
When a man no friendship needs,
On immediate favor counts
MR. ANANIAS BOUNCE.





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