Odd Leaves

THE WESTERN WRITER TO HIS MUSE.

I have no wild desire to sing, and sing, Or kneel at Nature’s feet, and be her mummer. Poetic fancies are not rioting For liberty, like prisoned birds in summer. No thoughts, like maidenhair, climb round and cling To rhyming roosters writing on a thrummer; But frowsy devils, round the camp to-night, Suggest alone the commonplace and trite.

There is no bubbling spring within my clay; I hold no lyrics straining at the tether; My bones would drift right into blanket hay If it were not such rough financial weather. I’d never pen a par, or lay a lay, Or deck ambition’s cady with a feather If I could clutch a whisky piping hot, A plate of hash, a pension and a pot.

No, she will never set the Thames a-flame, Nor even churn a Western willy-willy, My Muse! now growing greasy-heeled and lame: She never was too sprightly as a filly; But now, God bless my stars! her fires are tame— They wouldn’t even boil a blanky billy, Or grill a steak, or mull a glass of stout, Garnished around with oysters—or without.

Get up, old girl! and give yourself a try— A snort, a cough, a whistle, or a whinny— Some folk are waiting now outside to buy, If you’d display the spirit of a jenny!— Prick up your ears! Just look a trifle spry, And we may catch the nimble half-a-guinea.

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What! No? Well, dash my eyes, you are a cow, To jib incontinently, here, and now!