18
A FABLE FOR THE CRITICS.
If he's forced to 't again, and we happen to be there,
Give us each a large handkerchief soaked in strong ether."
Give us each a large handkerchief soaked in strong ether."
I called this a "Fable for Critics;" you think it's
More like a display of my rhythmical trinkets;
My plot, like an icicle, 's slender and slippery,
Every moment more slender, and likely to slip awry,
And the reader unwilling in loco desipere,
Is free to jump over as much of my frippery
As he fancies, and, if he's a provident skipper, he
May have an Odyssean sway of the gales,
And got safe into port, ere his patience all fails;
Moreover, although 'tis a slender return
For your toil and expense, yet my paper will burn,
And, if you have manfully struggled thus far with me,
You may e'en twist me up, and just light your cigar with me:
If too angry for that, you can tear me in pieces,
And any membra disjecta consign to the breezes,
A fate like great Ratzau's, whom one of those bores,
Who beflead with bad verses poor Louis Quatorze,
Deseribes, (the first verse somehow ends with victoire,)
As dispersant partout et ses membres et sa gloire;
Or, if I were over-desirous of earning
A repute among noodles for classical learning,
I could pick you a score of allusions, I wis,
As new as the jests of Didaskalos tis;
More like a display of my rhythmical trinkets;
My plot, like an icicle, 's slender and slippery,
Every moment more slender, and likely to slip awry,
And the reader unwilling in loco desipere,
Is free to jump over as much of my frippery
As he fancies, and, if he's a provident skipper, he
May have an Odyssean sway of the gales,
And got safe into port, ere his patience all fails;
Moreover, although 'tis a slender return
For your toil and expense, yet my paper will burn,
And, if you have manfully struggled thus far with me,
You may e'en twist me up, and just light your cigar with me:
If too angry for that, you can tear me in pieces,
And any membra disjecta consign to the breezes,
A fate like great Ratzau's, whom one of those bores,
Who beflead with bad verses poor Louis Quatorze,
Deseribes, (the first verse somehow ends with victoire,)
As dispersant partout et ses membres et sa gloire;
Or, if I were over-desirous of earning
A repute among noodles for classical learning,
I could pick you a score of allusions, I wis,
As new as the jests of Didaskalos tis;
