Harper's Magazine/Borrowed Robes

HERE'S Binks, he is wearing the "mantle of Scott,"— His publishers so advertise. I really can't say if it's truthful or not, I haven't had time to get wise. I fancy, however, it isn't quite so, Tho' Binksy is walking on stilts. For Scott never sported a mantle, altho' He frequently went out in kilts.

And Tompkins—a poet of passion—they say Is wearing the "shoes of John Keats." I rather believe it is true from the play Of Tompkins's rhythmical feats. I've noticed they move with a horrible limp As though he'd a cork-legged muse. His gait has a very unmetrical crimp From wearing another man's shoes.

There's others who're wearing the left-over duds Of Byron and Shelley and Lamb. I dare say there's some one who's wearing the studs Of old Mr. Omar Khayyam. The collar of Dickens is one fellow's lot; Another's the rubbers of Poe: And G. Harding Wiggles is said to have got The pot-hat of Daniel Defoe.

For me I care not for illustrious gowns. I want no one's mantle in mine. A second-hand garment will fill me with frowns— Such offers I'll ever decline; And if it so happens I take to the pen, Like certain mechanics I've known, I hope at the last, when I come to "say when," They'll find that my clothes were my own.