|
When I consider men of golden talents, I'm delighted, in my introverted way, to discover, as I'm drawing up the balance, how much we have in common, I and they.
Like Burns, I have a weakness for the botttle, Like Shakespeare, little latin and less Greek; I bite my fingernails like Aristotle; Like Thackeray, I have a snobbish streak.
I'm afflicted with the vanity of Byron, I've inherited the spitefulness of Pope; Like Petrach, I'm a sucker for siren, Like Milton, I've a tendency to mope.
My spelling is suggestive of a Chaucer; Like Johnson, well, I do not wish to die (I also drink my coffee from the saucer); and if Goldsmith was a parrot, so am I.
Like Villon, I have debits by the carload, Like swinburne, I'm afraid I need a nurse; By my dicing is Christopher out-Marlowed, And I dream as mush as Coleridge, only worse.
In comparison with men of golden talents, I am all a man of talent ought to be; I resemble every genius in his vice, however heinous- Yet I write so much like me. |
|