New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-04-29
RHYME AND UNREASON.

An Iowa poet who has been asked to deliver
some rhyme TO the Press Association OF that
flOurisling State, answers with fluent acorDlty
that he will do nothing of the kind. He has
onit the business-he says; he has dismissed
his muse, hung his harp on a bass7wood tree,
and utterly repudiated rhyme ard rhythm.
He has seen the folly of it, He does not even
adopt the cOmplacent motto which Sir William
Blackstone prefxed to his one and only
volume of poems, to the effect that man was
not necessarily q Ounce for having written
poetry-the blunder was in continuing to write
| it, This occidental bard thinks the trade a
| bad one from the beginning. 1t has been to
| him the direful spring of woes unnumbered
| He has been regarded from early life as
| sbiftless ne'er- dO-weel, because he was con-
scous of a similarity of sound between "love"
| and "doven He has been compelled to add
a cubt to the stature of certain Iowa ruifians
and to pursue in courts of law certain htigiOus
Pixies because it was taken for granted that
a poet had no perception of his rights or his
muscles. His narrative goes into more pro-
found and narrowing details. He would have
been the Managing Editor of The Dubuque
Times. and caused tyrants to tremble on their
decomposing thrones, if it had not been for
this unhallowed fame that chung to him like
that unfortunate second hand shirt that Alcidcs
found dear at any price. But not only was he
excluded from the sanctum of the Dubuque
lumnary-he was shut out from the innermost
glories of Executive intimacy by this fatal gift of
genius He would have been &" President
Grants shorthand reporter" if, instead of
being a poet, he had been Ounce. "And
Al L. tbara
"s35OO a year, for four or eight years. with all
:" the benefits that might directly and indirectly
"accrue from such a position, just because it
Happened to leak out that sometimes 'lisped
"'ln numbers" In fact the disasters that have
come to him as the suite of his song are too
numerous to mention, and he sums them up
as amounting in gross TO loss of fifty or
"seventy thousand dollars-and l amt much
"Of a poet, either ~
More, therefore, in sorrow than in anger, he
tendery reproaches the Press Association for
having renewed his infandum dolOrem. He
hopes by life of consistent stupidity to re-
cover the repute he has lost by his youthful
flashes of genius and announces his intention
of sueing for SANDER anybody who hereafter
calls him poet.
We assure him there is no danger of perma-
nent injury TO him from the poetry he may
write. Mr.. Gladstone writes better verses than
he ever can and yet is First Minister. Shake
speare was good business man and saved
money. Rogers was successful banker, and
Bryant is still at the head of q money making
newspaper. Even in the direction of our dis
gusted bard's most cherished aspiration there
is a precedent of poetic success, for Milton, in
spite of his rhyme, was Secretary TO CrOm-
well. Mr.. Everett wrote good verses, and
John Quincy Adams bad ones. and neither was
damaged by them, and no man who is capable
of doing better things than cap rhymes will
ever suffer for having amused himself in that
way. But if our Iowa poet is in dead earnest
about it, and wishes to escape from the en-
comprising glory that marks him as too sacred
for common use, let him leave Dubuque, and
he may be sure he will never DO called poet
again.
Alas for good resolutions! In the same
newspaper Inch contains this energetic
nunciation of all acquaintance with the mu.
is an announcement that "wo print on oui
third pageD poem from tho graceful and
facile pen of J. l.. McCreery. What can you
do with such casei Though it Stay him,
yet will 10 rhyme. His mind is made up TO be
dull and yirtuous. He breaks his wand ant
burns hi5 Rhyming Dictionary. He announce
his determination to oil his friends, and de
fines his position in the daily press. But tho
moment he Is alone, the Muse he has deri1ed
comes unbidden. At The first rustic of her
robe. tho inst football OF her glowing sandals,
the first elauco of her inspiring eyes, tL.S