Have you, as I, O Reader kind,
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Sometimes before your bookshelves stood,
Seeking in vain some book to find,
The proper and peculiar food
For some un je-ne-sais-quoi mood?—
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In other words, you know not what—
May I advise, yet not intrude,
Dickens, Dumas, or Walter Scott?
With all fair fruitage of the mind,
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The beautiful, the wise, the good,
Your shelves luxuriously are lined;
And yet, O strange ingratitude!
They bring you no beatitude,
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The charm they had this day is not:
Try then—if I were you, I should
Dickens, Dumas, or Walter Scott.
For idle "vapours" undefined,
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For sickly Thought's distempered brood,
Throw "psycho-analysts" behind
The fire, and be all such eschewed:
Let simple laughter stir your blood,
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And plot, and breathless counter-plot,
And all Life's moving multitude—
Dickens, Dumas, or Walter Scott.
Yea, gentle Reader, if we would
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Forget ourselves, our cares forgot,
None else can equal, by the Rood,
Dickens, Dumas, or Walter Scott.