BALLADE OF THE REVIEWER.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue IX, 3 March 1894, Page 199

BALLADE OF THE REVIEWER.

[Dear Sir.— Would you kindly review the accompanying miscellaneous little books of versei—Ko.) My heart misgives me and my spirits sink, I quail before that little serried line Of dainty-looking volumes, when I think What hours of painful travail will be mine ; How I shall search and labour to combine Some ounce of blessing with my pound of curse, How I shall have to sift and.winnow fine Those miscellaneous little books of verse. Brave are their liveries of green and pink, Sapphire and orange and the gay carmine ; Bravely they menace me, nor seem to shrink From that cold fate they hardly yet divine. Poor innocents ! The task I would resign Did I not feel that some reviewer more fierce Might sacrifice them on a harsher shrine, Those miscellaneous little books of verse. Comes it from passion, poverty, or drink, Why breed they now such starveling stock, the Nine? Why this outpouring of good time and ink On mere prose stuff and trifles superfine ? In vain laboriously I disentwine The partly better fnm the wholly worse ; Few gems, or none, amid their dust heaps shine. Those miscellaneous little books of verse. ENVOY. Well, to my work. O Editor benign, Who lovest notices both crisp and terse, Brief praise be theirs and chastisement cor dign, These miscellaneous little books of verse I H.C.M.