THE
POET IS BIDDEN TO MANHATTAN ISLAND
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Dear
Poet, quit your shady lanes
And come where more than lanes
are shady.
Leave Phyllis to the rustic swains
And sing some Knickerbocker lady.
O hither haste, and here devise
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5 |
Divine
ballades before unuttered.
Your poet’s eyes must recognize
The side on which your bread is
buttered!
Dream not I tempt you to forswear
One pastoral joy, or rural frolic.
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10 |
I call
you to a city where
The most urbane are most bucolic.
’Twill charm your poet’s eyes to find
Good husbandmen in brokers burly;—
Their stock is ever on their mind;
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15 |
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water it they rise up early.
Things you have sung, but ah, not seen—
Things proper to the age of
Saturn—
Shall greet you here; for we have been
Wrought quaintly, on the Arcadian
pattern.
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Your
poet’s lips will break in song
For joy, to see at last appearing
The bulls and bears, a peaceful throng,
While a lamb leads them—to
the shearing!
And metamorphoses, of course,
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25 |
You’ll
mark in plenty, á la Proteus:
A bear become a little horse—
Presumably from too much throat-use!
A thousandfold must go untold;
But, should you miss your farm-yard
sunny,
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30 |
And
miss your ducks and drakes, behold
We’ll make you ducks and
drakes—of money!
Greengrocers here are fairly read.
And should you set your heart
upon them,
We lack not beets—but some are dead,
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35 |
While
others have policemen on them.
And be the dewfall dear to you,
Possess your poet’s soul
in patience!
Your notes shall soon be falling dew,—
Most mystical of transformations!
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40 |
Your
heart, dear Poet, surely yields;
And soon you’ll leave your
uplands flowery,
Forsaking fresh and bowery fields,
For “pastures new”—upon
the Bowery!
You’ve piped at home, where none could pay,
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45 |
Till
now, I trust, your wits are riper.
Make no delay, but come this way,
And pipe for them that pay the
piper!
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