Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
To Correspondents
1MY postman, though I fear thy tread,
2 And tremble as thy foot draws nearer,
3'Tis not the Christmas dun I dread,
4 My mortal foe is much severer --
5The unknown correspondent, who,
6 With indefatigable pen,
7And nothing in the world to do,
8 Perplexes literary men.
9From Pentecost and Ponder's End
10 They write: from Deal, and from Dacota;
11The people of the Shetlands send
12 No inconsiderable quota;
13They write for autographs; in vain --
14 In vain does Phyllis write, and Flora;
15They write that Allan Quatermain
16 Is not at all the book for Brora.
17They write to say that they have met
18 This writer 'at a garden party,
19And though' this writer 'may forget'
20 Their recollection 's keen and hearty;
21'And will you praise in your reviews
22 A novel by our distant cousin.'
23These letters from provincial blues
24 Assail us daily by the dozen.
25O friends with time upon your hands,
26 O friends with postage-stamps in plenty,
27O poets out of many lands,
28 O youths and maidens under twenty,
29Seek out some other wretch to bore,
30 Or wreak yourselves upon your neighbours,
31And leave me to my dusty lore
32 And my unprofitable labours!
Notes
3] dun: bill.
9] Pentecost: an island in the New Hebrides in the Pacific Ocean.
Ponder's End: in the borough of Enfield, London.
10] Deal: one of the cinque ports, in Kent.
Dacota: the Dakotas, in the mid-west United States.
15] Allan Quatermain: an adventure novel by H. Rider Haggard.
16] Brora: a town in northern Scotland on the North Sea.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: The Poetical Works of Andrew Lang, ed. Mrs. Lang, 4 vols. (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1923): III, 97-98. British Library 011645.ee.47
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 2001
Recent editing: 2:2002/2/20
Rhyme: ababcdcd
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