To a Country Cousin
CRUEL Cousin Kate, you ask me
For a lyric or a lay.
How tyrannical to task me,
Cousin Kate, in such a way.
Pardon me, I pray, and pity—
(Oh, do anything but frown!)
For I can’t be wise or witty
In an album out of town
No, my Pegasus will canter
Only here on civic stones;
In the country I instanter
Come to grief and broken bones.
Be it mine to sing the city,
Where I seek my mild renown;—
But I can’t be wise or witty
In an album out of town.
Small my power and small my will is
Rural sympathies to win;
Ludgate my sublimest hill is,
And my fields are Lincoln’s Inn
All the Muses in committee,
Pouring inspiration down,
Cannot make me wise or witty
In an album out of town.
London life in many phases
I describe for Cockney friends;
Lead me out among the daisies
And my versifying ends.
I can favor with a ditty
Jones, and Robinson, and Brown;
But I can’t be wise or witty
In an album out of town.
Cousin, hear my supplication;
Give me something else to do.
Is there aught in all creation
I would not attempt for you?
Ask my life, my cruel Kitty:
Bid me hang, or bid me drown;
But I can’t be wise or witty
In an album out of town.
Henry S. Leigh.