| |
| MY Postman, though I fear thy tread, | |
| And tremble as thy foot draws nearer, | |
| ’T is not the Christmas Dun I dread, | |
| My mortal foe is much severer,— | |
| The Unknown Correspondent, who, | 5 |
| With indefatigable pen, | |
| And nothing in the world to do, | |
| Perplexes literary men. | |
| |
| From Pentecost and Ponder’s End | |
| They write; from Deal and from Dacotah, | 10 |
| The people of the Shetlands send | |
| No inconsiderable quota; | |
| They write for autographs; in vain, | |
| In vain does Phyllis write, and Flora, | |
| They write that Allan Quatermain | 15 |
| Is not at all the book for Brora. | |
| |
| They write to say that “they have met” | |
| This writer “at a garden party,” | |
| And though this writer “may forget,” | |
| Their recollection’s keen and hearty. | 20 |
| “And will you praise in your reviews | |
| A novel by our distant cousin?” | |
| These letters from Provincial Blues | |
| Assail us daily by the dozen! | |
| |
| O friends with time upon your hands, | 25 |
| O friends with postage stamps in plenty, | |
| O poets out of many lands, | |
| O youths and maidens under twenty, | |
| Seek out some other wretch to bore, | |
| Or wreak yourselves upon your neighbours, | 30 |
| And leave me to my dusty lore, | |
| And my unprofitable labours. | |
| |
