My Masterpiece

It's slim and trim and bound in blue;      Its leaves are crisp and edged with gold;      Its words are simple, stalwart too;      Its thoughts are tender, wise and bold.      Its pages scintillate with wit;      Its pathos clutches at my throat:      Oh, how I love each line of it!      That Little Book I Never Wrote.      In dreams I see it praised and prized      By all, from plowman unto peer;      It's pencil-marked and memorized,      It's loaned (and not returned, I fear);      It's worn and torn and travel-tossed,      And even dusky natives quote      That classic that the world has lost,      The Little Book I Never Wrote.      Poor ghost! For homes you've failed to cheer,      For grieving hearts uncomforted,      Don't haunt me now. . . . Alas! I fear      The fire of Inspiration's dead.      A humdrum way I go to-night,      From all I hoped and dreamed remote:      Too late . . . a better man must write      That Little Book I Never Wrote.