Coldblooded Criticism
Mr. Longfellow sent this little verse to the Columbus, Ohio, school children, who celebrated his birthday:
“If any thought of mine, e’er sung or told,
Has ever given delight or consolation,
Ye have repaid me back a thousand-fold
By every friendly sign and salutation.
With the compliments and good wishes of
H. W. Longfellow.”
Whereupon a Cincinnati paper chaffed the poet in this fashion: “Certainly, Mr. Longfellow; but if you sung it you told it, didn’t you? It is rather your point to tell a thing in singing it! Why, then, ‘sung or told?’ And why the back in the third line? Break that back. Could one repay you forward? And is not a sign also a salutation?”