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TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In the shy light of the twilight, when the day's departing high light
Last Line: You left only sure disaster to all imitative feet!


In the shy light of the twilight, when the day's departing high light
Leaves my attic 'neath the skylight in a dull and dreamy haze,
Then my fancies cease to wander in the noisy world out yonder
And I sit alone and ponder on the poetry that pays.

I have nothing new to utter, but I must have bread and butter,
And I'll soon be in the gutter if I do not pay my rent.
I was never skilled in fiction, but I swing poetic diction
In a metre without friction, though of thought quite innocent.

In the stress that I am under I conceive it right to plunder
The poetic fire and thunder that successful poets fling.
So instead of reperusing favourite poets of their choosing
Folk might read me without losing any song the masters sing.

For it seems that almost any little man might make a penny
If he took the flower of Tennyson and turned it into bread.
He's a shade and needs no dinner like this impecunious sinner;
To a hungry pup beginner what's a lion that is dead?

It would harm D. G. Rossetti very little if my debt he
Helped diminish through a petty theft committed in his House.
And would generous Robert Browning show a ghostly visage frowning
If his Pippa saved from drowning a poor literary mouse?

I will mix these standard metals, mould new cups from ancient kettles
(Ah, the melting prospect settles all the bills I've owed so long!)
I will be the universal, the eclectic, the rehearsal
Of all poets, and my purse'll sing a jingling golden song.

But while fancy thus composes an alluring world of roses,
Suddenly a doubt discloses that my dream is all a sham.
How can I be this composite when there's been a man who was it,
Who has rifled every closet and tried every jar of jam?

Calverley, Prince Imitator, most ingenious Recreator,
Who made all the great ones greater, wizard Parodist complete!
You preempted every master, turned his rhymes -- and turned them faster --
You left only sure disaster to all imitative feet!





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