With A Volume Of Verse.

About the ending of the Ramadn,     When leanest grows the famished Mussulman,     A haggard ne'er-do-well, Mahmoud by name,     At the tenth hour to Caliph OMAR came.     "Lord of the Faithful (quoth he), at the last     The long moon waneth, and men cease to fast;     Hard then, O hard! the lot of him must be,     Who spares to eat ... but not for piety!"     "Hast thou no calling, Friend?"--the Caliph said.     "Sir, I make verses for my daily bread."     "Verse!"--answered OMAR. "'Tis a dish, indeed,     Whereof but scantily a man may feed.     Go. Learn the Tenter's or the Potter's Art,--     Verse is a drug not sold in any mart."     I know not if that hungry Mahmoud died;     But this I know--he must have versified,     For, with his race, from better still to worse,     The plague of writing follows like a curse;     And men will scribble though they fail to dine,     Which is the Moral of more Books than mine.