When you might be a name for the world to acclaim,
and when Opulence dawns on the view,
Why slave like a Turk at Collegiate work
for a wholly inadequate screw?
Why grind at the trade—insufficiently paid—of
instructing for Mods and for Greats,
When fortunes immense are diurnally made
by a lecturing tour in the States?
Do you know that in scores they will pay at the doors—these
millions in darkness who grope—
For a glimpse of Mark Twain or a word from Hall Caine
or a reading from Anthony Hope?
We are ignorant here of the glorious career
which conspicuous talent awaits:
Not a master of style but is making his pile
by the lectures he gives in the States!
With amazement I hear of the chances they
lose—of the simply incredible sums
Which a Barrie might have (if he did not refuse)
for reciting A Window in Thrums:
Of the prospects of gain which are offered
in vain as a sop to the Laureate's pride:
Of the price which I learn Mr Bradshaw
might earn by declaiming his excellent Guide.
Columbia! desist from soliciting those who
your bribes and petitions contemn:
Though plutocrats scorn the rewards you
propose, there are others superior to them:
Why burden the proud with superfluous
pelf, who wealth in abundance possess,
When indigent Worth (I allude to myself)
would go for substantially less?
For Europe, I know, to oblivion may doom
the fruits of my talented brain,
But they're perfectly sure of creating a boom
in the wilds of Kentucky and Maine:
They'll appreciate there my illustrious work
on the way to make Pindar to scan,
And Culture will hum in the State of New York
when I read it my essay on 'An!
I've a scheme, which is this:—I will start
for the West as a Limited Lecturing Co.,
And the public invite in the same to invest
to the tune of a million or so:
They will all be recouped for initial expense
by receiving their share of the "gates,"
Which I venture to think will be truly
immense when I lecture on Prose in the States.
Thus Merit will not be permitted to rot—as
it does—on Obscurity's shelf:
Thus the national hoard shall with profit be
stored (with a trifle of course for myself):
For lectures are dear in that fortunate
sphere, and are paid for at fabulous rates,—
All the gold of Klondike isn't anything like
to the sums that are made in the States!