The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1876-01-06
A FAMILIAR LETTER.
TO SEVERAL coRnEspoNpENTs.

TO SEVERAL CORRESPONDENTS.
xes, write, if you want to, there's nothing like
trying;
who knows what treasure your casket may
GsH show you that rhymings as easy as lying
II you'll listen to me while the art unfold.
Here's book full of words; one can choose as he
fancies.
As painter his tint, as a workman his tool;
Tast shank! all the poems, and plays and romances
VssCe drawn out OF this, like the fish from pool!
zsE can wander at will through its syllabled mazes
And take all you want-not copper they COST
What is there to hinder your picking out phrases
.ar epic clever as Paradise Lost.
xBoo't mind if the index of sense is at zero,
Use words that smoothly, whatever they
Y.eander and Lillian and Lillibullero
Are nluch the same thing in the rhyming ma
chlne'
That boarding favor of which we're
afraid
There is FLUSH is good one, ana swirl Is
another
but both in one stanza, its fortune is made.
with musical nurrnurs and rhythmicaI closes
You can cheat us of smiles when you've nothing
to tell;
And we cry with delight, .'Oh, how sweet they
do SMELL"
Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions
For winning the laurel to which you aspire
7sy docking the tails of the two propositions
f. Che style O. the bards you so greatly admire.
As for subjects for verse, they are only too plenty
For ringing the changes on netrical chimes,
A maiden, moonbeam. a lover OF twenty
Have filed that great basket with bushels of
rhymest
let me show you a picture-tis far from irrele-
BY a famous old hand in the arts of design;
9Tis only photographed sketh OF an elephant
The name of the draghtsman was Rembrandt OF
Rhine.
s9aw easy! no troublesome colors to lay on,
&c can't have fatigued him-no, not in the least
4 dash here and there with hap-hazard crayon,
And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, baggy-
Embed beast
Just SO with your verse-'tis as easy sketching-
You reel off song without knitting your
As lightly as Rembrandt drawing or etching;
Kt is nothing at all, if you only know how.
We'll, imagine you've printed your volume Of
Your forehead is wreathed with the garland of
your poems the eloquent school boy rehearses,
Her album the school girl presents for your name;
you'll answer them promptly-an hour ism much
Tor the honor of sharing page with your betters,
With Magistrates, members OF congress, ana
such.
81 course, you're delighted to the committees
That come with requests from the country all
round,
You would grace the occasion with poems and dit
ties
when they've got new school house, or poor
house, pound
With hymn for the saints and song for the sim
ners,
You go and are welcome wherever you please;
You're privileged guest at all of dinners,
You've a seat the platform among the
grandees.
at length your mere presence becomes sensation,
Your cup of enjoyment is filed to its brim.
With the pleasure of Horatian of EXPERIMENTATION,
AS the whisper runs round of 8 That's he !" or
" That's him!"
But remember, oh dealer in phrases sonorous,
SO daintily chosen, so tunefully matched,
Though you with the wings of cherubim
DER us,
The Drum was human from which you were
Matched.
Can summon the spirit that quickens the Tyre:
1t comes, Mf at all, like the SibyIs CONFUSION
And touches the brain with finger of fire.
So, perhaps, after all, it's as we'll to be quiet,
IL you've nothing you think is worth saying in
As TO furnish a meal of their cannibaI diet
To the critics, by publishing, as you propose.
But it's all of no use, and I'm sorry I've written
shall see your thin volume some day on my
shelf;
For the rhyming tarantula surely has bitten,
And music must cure, so pipe it yourself
Otter Wendell Holmes, IN Atlantic for January.