The Troubadour + 

Professor Gayley, you’re a great man, sure! + 

They say that you can almost fly!⁠—can spell + 

And parse, but cannot figure well + 

(For mathematics is not literature) + 

And hold⁠—with rancor⁠—that twice two are fewer + 

Than they’re cracked up to be. Let sinners tell + 

Wherein you disappoint, but I will swell + 

The chorus of your greatness. I’ll procure + 

For that exploit a megaphone of brass, + 

And roar your excellences to the sky, + 

And fill with witness all the world! Alas, + 

You can’t write poetry! No more can I, + 

But that, you’ll notice, is another matter. + 

Besides, I’m less ubiloquent, and fatter. + 

You hold the Chair, so your credentials say, + 

Of English Letters. That is well and fine. + 

Through teaching diligently, line by line, + 

You may yourself have the good luck some day + 

To learn enough of it to bid you stay + 

Your red right hand from making it. The nine + 

Dear Muses then with laurels will entwine + 

Your brows and leg it lightly to display + 

Their joy. O bold, bad poet, hear + 

These words of wisdom (from a grizzled head) + 

Inserted civilly into your ear: + 

In teaching verse you’ll better earn your bread, + 

And on our feelings less unkindly trample, + 

If you will work by precept, not example. + 

Not all the shouting capitals you use + 

Can strengthen feebleness, nor all the skill + 

You lack conceal the foolish hates that fill + 

The fountain whence the driblet of your views + 

Flows in a dirty channel to suffuse + 

With slime the British Empire! Dip your quill + 

In something sweeter and you’ll write less ill⁠— + 

At least your rant we better can excuse. + 

No doubt you wish you had been born a Boer + 

(Spelling excepted, so indeed you were; + 

A Bore as well) but that’s a very poor + 

Ambition. By the Lord! I should prefer + 

To be a Briton though they shot me daily + 

And threw my body to your hoofs, Jack Gayley. + 