Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur

"How shall I be a poet?

  How shall I write in rhyme?

  You told me once `the very wish

  Partook of the sublime.'

  The tell me how! Don't put me off

  With your `another time'!"

  The old man smiled to see him,

  To hear his sudden sally;

  He liked the lad to speak his mind

 Enthusiastic

ally;

 And thought "There's no hum-drum in him,

 Nor any shilly-shally."

 "And would you be a poet

 Before you've been to school?

 Ah, well! I hardly thought you

 So absolute a fool.

 First learn to be spasmodic —

 A very simple rule.

 "For first you write a sentence,

 And then you chop it small;

 Then mix the bits, and sort them out

 Just as they chance to fall:

 The order of the phrases makes

 No difference at all.

 `Then, if you'd be impressive,

 Remember what I say,

 That abstract qualities begin

 With capitals alway:

 The True, the Good, the Beautiful —

 Those are the things that pay!

 "Next, when we are describing

 A shape, or sound, or tint;

 Don't state the matter plainly,

 But put it in a hint;

 And learn to look at all things

 With a sort of mental squint."

 "For instance, if I wished, Sir,

 Of mutton-pies to tell,

 Should I say `dreams of fleecy flocks

 Pent in a wheaten cell'?"

 "Why, yes," the old man said: "that phrase

 Would answer very well.

 "Then fourthly, there are epithets

 That suit with any word —

 As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce

 With fish, or flesh, or bird —

 Of these, `wild,' `lonely,' `weary,' `strange,'

 Are much to be preferred."

 "And will it do, O will it do

 To take them in a lump —

 As `the wild man went his weary way

 To a strange and lonely pump'?"

 "Nay, nay! You must not hastily

 To such conclusions jump.

 "Such epithets, like pepper,

 Give zest to what you write;

 And, if you strew them sparely,

 They whet the appetite:

 But if you lay them on too thick,

 You spoil the matter quite!

 "Last, as to the arrangement:

 Your reader, you should show him,

 Must take what information he

 Can get, and look for no im­

 mature disclosure of the drift

 And purpose of your poem.

 "Therefore to test his patience —

 How much he can endure —

 Mention no places, names, or dates,

 And evermore be sure

 Throughout the poem to be found

 Consistently obscure.

 "First fix upon the limit

 To which it shall extend:

 Then fill it up with `Padding'

 (Beg some of any friend)

 Your great SENSATION-STANZA

 You place towards the end."

 "And what is a Sensation,

 Grandfather, tell me, pray?

 I think I never heard the word

 So used before to-day:

 Be kind enough to mention one

 `Exempli gratiâ'"

 And the old man, looking sadly

 Across the garden-lawn,

 Where here and there a dew-drop

 Yet glittered in the dawn,

 Said "Go to the Adelphi,

 And see the `Colleen Bawn.'

 "The word is due to Boucicault —

 The theory is his,

 Where Life becomes a Spasm,

 And History a Whiz:

 If that is not Sensation,

 I don't know what it is,

 "Now try your hand, ere Fancy

 Have lost its present glow —"

 "And then," his grandson added,

 "We'll publish it, you know:

 Green cloth — gold-lettered at the back —

 In duodecimo!"

 Then proudly smiled that old man

 To see the eager lad

 Rush madly for his pen and ink

 And for his blotting-pad —

 But, when he thought of publishing,

 His face grew stern and sad.Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.

The lyrical form of this poem is abcbdb.