Ah, me, this Attic Chest
Allows one not a moment’s rest,
From Delphi I to London come
To bear the truant Muses home;
My hapless tail too on the way,
Must largely for the journey pay.
And scarce arrived to my surprise,
I’m sent a journey to the skies,
And not enough, at other times,
I’m prest with such a load of rhymes
That I am growing monstrous thin,
Indeed I’m nought but bone & skin
Sometimes from morn till night I’m jaded
With ponderous heroics — laded
Or (then my Backett somewhat neater)
I’m laden with a lighter metre
Incessant ridden morn and night
Till I’m in such a piteous blight
I cannot even stand upright.
A.N.