A Poet’s Hope
’Twas a weary-looking mortal, and he wandered near the portal
Of the melancholy City of the Discontented Dead.
He was pale and worn exceeding and his manner was unheeding,
As if it could not matter what he did nor what he said.
“Sacred stranger”—I addressed him with a reverence befitting The austere, unintermitting, dread solemnity he wore; ’Tis the custom, too, prevailing in that vicinage when hailing One who possibly may be a person lately “gone before”—
“Sacred stranger, much I ponder on your evident dejection,
But my carefulest reflection leaves the riddle still unread.
How do you yourself explain your dismal tendency to wander
By the melancholy City of the Discontented Dead?”
Then that solemn person, pausing in the march that he was making, Roused himself as if awaking, fixed his dull and stony eye On my countenance and, slowly, like a priest devout and holy, Chanted in a mournful monotone the following reply:
“O my brother, do not fear it; I’m no disembodied spirit—
I am Lampton, the Slang Poet, with a price upon my head.
I am watching by this portal for some late lamented mortal
To arise in his disquietude and leave his earthy bed.
“Then I hope to take possession and pull in the earth above me And, renouncing my profession, ne’er be heard of any more. For there’s not a soul to love me and no living thing respects me, Which so painfully affects me that I fain would ‘go before.’”
Then I felt a deep compassion for the gentleman’s dejection,
For privation of affection would refrigerate a frog.
So I said: “If nothing human, and if neither man nor woman
Can appreciate the fashion of your merit—buy a dog.”