Nay, that epic of mine which begins from foundations the Bible is
built on--
"Of man's _first_ disobedience"--I've heard it attributed, dammy, to
Milton.
Well, it's lucky for them that it's not worth my while, as I may say,
to break spears
With the hirelings, forsooth, of the press who assert that Othello was
Shakespeare's.
When he that can run, sir, may read--if he borrows the book, or goes
on tick--
In my poems the bit that describes how the Hellespont joins the Propontic.
There are men, I believe, who will tell you that Gray wrote the whole
of The Bard--
Or that I didn't write half the Elegy, Bill, in a Country Churchyard.
When you know that my poem, The Poet, begins--"Ruin seize thee!" and ends
With recapitulations of horrors the poet invokes on his friends.
And I'll swear, if you look at the dirge on my relatives under the turf,
you
Will perceive it winds up with some lines on myself--and begins with
the curfew.
Now you'll grant it's more probable, Bill--as a man of the world, if
you please--
That all these should have prigged from myself than that I should have
prigged from all these.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41