Ballade of the Pleased Bard

They call me “dull,” “affected,” “tame;”
My Muse “has neither voice nor wing;”
My prose (though lucrative) is “lame,”
My satires, “wasps without the sting.”
The Critic thus—Opprobrious thing!—
No more I heed or hear his chaff,
Nor note the ink that he may sling—
A Lady wants my autograph!

All heedless of the common blame,
My muse her random rhymes will string;
The Boers may shoot, the Irish “schame,”
The world and all its woes go swing!
My heart has ceased from sorrowing,
I grasp Apollo’s laurell’d staff,
And cry aloud, like anything,—
A Lady wants my autograph!

Oh Flatt’ry, soft, delicious flame!
Oh, fairer than the flowers of Spring,
These blossoms of the noblest name
A lady’s good enough to fling!
Ah, tie them with a silver string,
Crown, crown the bowl with shandygaff,
And shout, till all the welkin ring,—
“A Lady wants my autograph!”

ENVOY.

Princess, my lips can never frame
My whole acknowledgments, or half;
For this, I feel, at last, is fame—
A Lady wants my autograph!