A DILEMMA.

Filled with a zeal to serve my fellow men,

For years I criticised their prose and verges:

Pointed out all their blunders of the pen,

Their shallowness of thought and feeling; then

Damned them up hill and down with hearty curses!

They said: “That's all that he can do — just sneer,

And pull to pieces and be analytic.

Why does n't he himself, eschewing fear,

Publish a book or two, and so appear

As one who has the right to be a critic?

“Let him who knows it all forbear to tell

How little others know, but show his learning.”

The public added: “Who has written well

May censure freely” — quoting Pope. I fell

Into the trap and books began out-turning,—

Books by the score — fine prose and poems fair,

And not a book of them but was a terror,

They were so great and perfect; though I swear

I tried right hard to work in, here and there,

( My nature still forbade ) a fault or error.

‘ Tis true, some wretches, whom I'd scratched, no doubt,

Professed to find — but that's a trifling matter.

Now, when the flood of noble books was out

I raised o'er all that land a joyous shout,

Till I was thought as mad as any hatter!

( Why hatters all are mad, I cannot say.

‘ T were wrong in their affliction to revile‘ em,

But truly, you'll confess‘ tis very sad

We wear the ugly things they make. Begad,

They'd be less mischievous in an asylum! )

“Consistency, thou art a” — well, you're paste!

When next I felt my demon in possession,

And made the field of authorship a waste,

All said of me: “What execrable taste,

To rail at others of his own profession!”

Good Lord! where do the critic's rights begin

Who has of literature some clear-cut notion,

And hears a voice from Heaven say: “Pitch in”?

He finds himself — alas, poor son of sin —

Between the devil and the deep blue ocean!