Aftword

The feast is ended! (As we've seen.)
'Tis time the vacant board to quit.
By "vacant bored" I do not mean
My host of readers, not a bit!
For they, the mentally elite,
Are stimulated and replete.

The fare that I provide is light,
But don't, I pray, look down upon it!
Such verse is just as hard to write
As any sentimental sonnet.
It looks a simple task, maybe,--
Well--try your hand at it, and see!

Don't fancy too that I dispense
With study, or eschew research;
Sufficient books of reference
I have, to fill the highest church.
I've no dislike of work, I swear,--
It's doing it that I can't bear!

Abuse or praise me, as you choose,
There is no limit to my patience;
My verse the London Daily News
Once styled "Mephitic exhalations"!
I lived that down,--(don't ask me how,)--
And nothing really hurts me now.

For while my stricken soul survived,
With wounded pride and dulled ambition,
My humble book of verses thrived
And quite outgrew the old edition!
So now I have exhaled some more,--
Mephitically, as before!