SECOND EPISTLE
Why my pen, that once was busy, idly on the inkstand slumbers?
Why am I not, work forgetting, tempted by the rhythmic numbers?
Sleeping in the yellow pages, why no longer to me corne
All the trochees, soaring iambs, and the dactyls frolicsome?
Could I tell you all the hardship of my poor life day by day,
You would see that I’ve great reason this my pen to throw away.
After all this useless struggle is there any reason why
In new form the old, wise language I to mould again should try?
That profound, mysterious feeling, sleeping on my harp-strings well,
Must I now retail in couplets, like the goods the merchants sell?
Yes, of course, you will now answer, ’twould be well if for my name
In this world I should acquire with my verse immortal fame.
If with dedicating poems to great ladies court I paid,
Men of influence attracting, thus my fortune would be made,
And, fulfilled the mind’s ambition, would the soul’s distress allay.
My dear friends, so many others have already trod this way.
In our age quite well we know them, those strange bards who only list
Highest offices and many, everyone a pluralist.
Writing compliments to ladies and to statesmen; with their lyres
Trying only to accomplish in this world their mean desires.
In saloons these vapid idols now become our men of note,
Their career they strive to make, protected by a petticoat.
Why do I not go on writing for my name, for glory? Why?
Is there truly any glory in the desert thus to cry?
When to selfish passions only all poor mortals are the slaves,
Glory is a fancy idol praised by thousands of dull knaves,
Who call great a dwarfish creature, and a mighty genius see
In what is from froth the bubble in a trifling century.
