Poetic Aspirations Poem by Alexander Anderson

Ah me! for all my toil and search,
And rhyming, till the muse grow surly,
I doubt I ne'er shall hook my perch,
But miss him like that wayward Burley,
Who fish'd and fish'd, and still would ply
Each bait his ready fancy hit on,
And hook'd at last a paltry eye—
But for the rest, turn up your Lytton.


It costs but little, I avow,
To push yourself amongst your betters,
To splash with ink your massive brow,
And dub yourself a man of letters;
But still to live and feel the scorn
Of Fame, who never stirs a pinion,
Nor lifts with glancing eye her horn,
To blow you through her sweet dominion.


What though you wander all alone
And spin out poems short and pretty,
And take for mottoes to each one
Some transcendental line from Goethe
Or Schiller, just to show you care
A little for the higher learning,
And fling out jewels here and there
For minds both witty and discerning?


What though your knowledge, free and far,
Extends to bounds you may determine,
Say, from that horrid Punic war
To that between the French and German;
And still you chuckle, and suppose
Your fame grows wider and sublimer,
While your next neighbour, laughing, knows
That you are but a village rhymer?


And then, with anxious heed, you get
Your portrait in a nice position,
With head a little forward set,
As if in some ecstatic vision;
Or leaning on your hand, with eyes
That do their utmost to preserve a
Soft dreamy look of sweet surprise,
As if they look'd upon Minerva.


Well, 'tis an awful thing to think
That, after all one's firm devotion,
Not counting the expense of ink,
Should come no grade of sweet promotion;
And, worst of all, to know that none
Will come to ope the muse's portals,
Though you should live a cycle done,
Or live undying, like Swift's immortals.


I praise your Tennyson at times,
Though, entre nous, within I'm frowning,
And grudge him, lucky dog, his rhymes,
Along with those of mystic Browning;
I only wish this envy might
Prevail upon them to their giving
A leaf from off their laurel bright,
To keep my poor afflatus living.


But stop! the arts, as I have heard,
Go round this earth in sweet gyrations,
And are by some strange luck conferr'd
On even the most unpolish'd nations.
Then, what if they should come to me,
Instead of barbarous climes, to show it?
Why, I would humbly bow my knee,
And beg them to make me a poet.