Do you know, if a chap could write and write,
As editors pay and pay,
There’d be whips of sport
For the “shingle short”
On the rhymer’s inky way—
If the theme be bright and the hand as light
As the touch of a skeeter’s wing,
There is good red gold
In the Press-ship’s hold
For the songs that the rhymers sing.
There are stacks of room in the ranks of rhyme
For the persifleurs to fill—
There are plums and perks
For the bloke who works
With a tireless, lilting quill—
There are “values,” set in the measured line,
And “jim” in the tuneful scrawl,
Where the ore falls thick
To the light pen-prick,
And the sky is a hanging-wall.
There are no high backs in the rhymer’s stope,
No depths in the rhyming vein—
Not a drop of sweat
In the deft coup-let,
Or ache in a whole quatrain;
And editor-men, with their bags of gold,
Come out from their inky lairs,
And they doff their caps
To the rhymer-chaps,
As they bid for the rhymer’s wares.
So we sit aloft in our cushioned chairs
And scrawl for the world below,
And we smile aloud
At the toiling crowd,
As the toilers come and go—
For they say, of all at the desk or mine
Who drudge for a daily wage,
There are scores of men
With a rhymer’s pen
Who could blazon the world’s wide page!
And we glean from the supercilious bard—
The tilt of a scornful nose—
That the joyous call
Of a madrigal,
The voice of a wild red rose,
Awake in his room when the lamp burns low,
And the buzz-flies sink to rest;
And his throbbing brain,
With a mad refrain,
Sings the Soul-Song of the West.
But we of the “Times” and the “Sunday Sin”
Are the recreants of rhyme,
For our hearts won’t thud
And our souls won’t bud
Till the Oof-bird calls the time.
And we write—just so—for the clink of coin
And the incense of a quid,
And the deathless name
On the scroll of fame,
My brothers! awaits your bid.
[Decoration: Black swan]