A Novelist, whose magic art,
Had plumbed (’twas said) the human heart,
Whom for the penetrative ken
Wherewith he probed the souls of men
The Public and the Public’s wife
Declared synonymous with Life,—
Sat idle, being much perplexed
What Attitude to study next,
Because he would not wholly tell
Which Pose was likeliest to sell.
To him the Muse: “Why seek afar
For things that on the threshold are?
Why thus evolve with care and pain
From your imaginative brain?
Put Artifice upon the shelf,—
Take pen and ink, and draw—Yourself!”
The author heard: he took the hint:
He photographed himself in print.
His very inmost self he drew. . . .
The critics said, “This Will Not Do.
No more we recognize the art
Which used to plumb the human heart,—
This suffers from the patent vice
Of being not Art but Artifice.
’Tis deeply with the fault imbued
Of Inverisimilitude:
He’s written out; his skill’s forgot:
He only writes to Boil the Pot!
It is not true; it will not wash;
’Tis mere imaginative Bosh;
And if he can’t” (they told him flat)
“Get nearer to the Life than that,
He will not earn the Public’s pelf!”

This happens when you draw Yourself.
Or—I should say—it happens when
Such portraits are essayed by Men:
For presently a Lady came
And did substantially the same.
(Let everyone peruse this sequel
Who dreams that Man is Woman’s equal),—
She with a hand divinely free
Drew what she thought herself to be:
It did not much resemble Her
In moral strength or mental stature—
Yet did the critics all aver
It simply teemed with Human Nature!