 
Dear Lady,—When you bade me come To grace your crowded “Kettledrum,” And mingle in the best society; When Melba sang, and Elman played, And waiters handed lemonade (Tempering music with sobriety), I never had the least suspicion Of my precarious position. But now, with opened eyes, I leap To this conclusion, shrewd and deep, (What cerebral agility!): Your compliments were insincere, Your hospitality was mere “Insistent affability!” And I, a foolish man of letters, Who thought to mingle with his betters! Ah me! How pride precedes a fall! That one who haunted “rout” or ball, When invitations were acquirable, Should see himself as others see, Becoming suddenly, like me, A social “undesirable”; Invading the selectest clique With truly adamantine cheek! How proud an air I used to wear! When titled persons turned to stare, I blushed like a geranium. When lovely ladies softly said: “Oh, Duchess, did you see his head?” “What a capacious cranium!” “Yes; isn’t that the man who writes?” “I wonder why they look such frights!” I used to bridle coyly when Some schoolmate, of the Upper Ten (They were not over-numerous!), Would slap my back, and shout “By Jove! “Ain’t you a literary cove?” (As tho’ ’twere something humorous!) “Those books of yours are grand, you bet! What? No, I haven’t read them yet.” But now I realize my fate; A stranger at the social gate (Tho’ treated with civility); The choicest circles I frequent Must be the ones my brains invent, With fictional futility; The only Royalties I know Are those my publisher can show! The garden-party, and the tea, Are surely not for men like me (O Vanity of Vanities!); Such entertainments are taboo, And might debase my talents to Additional inanities. The Poet has no business there: Que ferait-il dans cette galÈre? Ah, lonely is the Author’s lot! Assuming, if he hath it not, A suitable humility. For when his daily work is done, He must inevitably shun The homes of the Nobility, As, with dejected steps, he passes To supper with the middle classes! “I wonder why they look such frights” |
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