Who sweep the lyre.

This is the recompense we meet
In our vocation.
We bear the burden and the heat
Of inspiration;

The beauties of the earth we sing
In glowing numbers,
And to the 'reading public' bring
Post-prandial slumbers;

We save from Mammon's gross dominion
These sordid times . . .
And all this, in the world's opinion,
Is 'stringing rhymes.'

It is as if a man should say,
In accents mild,
'Have you been stringing beads to-day,
My gentle child?'

(Yet even children fond of singing
Will pay off scores,
And I to-day at least am stringing
Not beads but bores.)

And now the sands were left behind,
The Club-house past.
I wondered, Can I hope to find