Impromptu Lines To Captain Riddell

    impromptu lines to captain riddell
    on returning a newspaper.
    your news and review, sir.
    i've read through and through, sir,
    with little admiring or blaming;
    the papers are barren
    of home-news or foreign,
    no murders or rapes worth the naming.
    our friends, the reviewers,
    those chippers and hewers,
    are judges of mortar and stone, sir;
    but of meet or unmeet,
    in a fabric complete,
    i'll boldly pronounce they are none, sir;
    my goose-quill too rude is
    to tell all your goodness
    bestow'd on your servant, the poet;
    would to god i had one
    like a beam of the sun,
    and then all the world, sir, should know it!