RETROSPECTION

I'd wandered, for a week or more,

Through hills, and dells, and doleful green'ry,

Lodging at any carnal door,

Sustaining life on pork, and scenery.

A weary scribe, I'd just let slip

My collar, for a short vacation,

And started on a walking trip,

That cheapest form of dissipation —

And vilest, Oh! confess my pen,

That I, prosaic, rather hate your

“Ode to a Sky-lark” sort of men;

I really am not fond of Nature.

Mad longing for a decent meal

And decent clothing overcame me;

There came a blister on my heel —

I gave it up; and who can blame me?

Then wrote my “Pulse of Nature's Heart,”

Which I procured some little cash on,

And quickly packed me to depart

In search of “gilded haunts” of fashion,

Which I might puff at column rates,

To please my host and meet my reckoning;

“Base is the slave who” — hesitates

When wealth, and pleasure both are beckoning.