Your various talents, Goldenson, command
Respect: you are a poet and can draw.
It is a pity that your gifted hand
Should ever have been raised against the law.
If you had drawn no pistol, but a picture,
You would have saved your throttle from a stricture.
About your poetry I’m not so sure:
’Tis certain we have much that’s quite as bad,
Whose hardy writers have not to endure
The hangman’s fondling. It is said they’re mad:
Though lately Mr. Brooks (I mean the poet)
Looked well, and if demented didn’t show it.
Well, Goldenson, I am a poet, too—
Taught by the muses how to smite the harp
And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you
And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp.
But let me say, with no desire to taunt you,
I never murder even the girls I want to.
I hold it one of the poetic laws
To sing of life, not take it. I have shown
A high regard for human life because
I have such trouble to support my own.
And you—well, you’ll find trouble soon in blowing
Your private coal to keep it red and glowing.
I fancy now I see you at the Gate
Approach St. Peter, crawling on your belly.
You cry: “Good sir, take pity on my state—
Forgive the murderer of Mamie Kelly!”
And Peter says: “O, that’s all right—but, mister,
You scribbled rhymes. In Hell I’ll make you blister!”