To My Friends and Critics
To My Friends and Critics
Original Text
Mortal refrains: the Complete Collected Poetry, Prose, and Songs of Julia A. Moore, the Sweet Singer of
Michigan, ed. Thomas J. Riedlinger (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998): 114-15. PS 2430 .M3 1998 Robarts Library. A Few Choice Words to the Public, with New and Original Poems (Grand Rapids, Michigan: C. M. Loomis, 1878).
1Come all you friends and critics,
2 And listen to my song,
3A word I will say to you,
4 It will not take me long,
5The people talks about me,
6 They've nothing else to do
7But to criticise their neighbors,
8 And they have me now in view.
9Perhaps they talk for meanness,
10 And perhaps it is in jest,
11If they leave out their freeness
12 It would suit me now the best,
13To keep the good old maxim
14 I find it hard to do,
15That is to do to others
16 As you wish them do to you.
17Perhaps you've read the papers
19I hope you kind good people
20 Will not believe it true.
21Some Editors of the papers
22 They thought it would be wise
23To write a column about me,
24 So they filled it up with lies.
25The papers have ridiculed me
26 A year and a half or more.
27Such slander as the interview
28 I never read before.
29Some reporters and editors
30 Are versed in telling lies.
31Others it seems are willing
32 To let industry rise.
33The people of good judgment
34 Will read the papers through,
35And not rely on its truth
36 Without a candid view.
37My first attempt at literature
38 Is the "Sweet Singer" by name,
39I wrote that book without a thought
40 Of the future, or of fame.
41Dear Friends, I write for money,
42 With a kind heart and hand,
43I wish to make no Enemies
44 Throughout my native land.
45Kind friends, now I close my rhyme,
46 And lay my pen aside,
47Between me and my critics
48 I leave you to decide.
Notes
18] E. A. Stowe, "Michigan's Nightingale," Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean (January 12, 1878), for which see Mortal Remains, ed. Thomas J. Riedlinger (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998): 217-25. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1878
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004