Read "Lord Bacon. Written as a Joke and Ascribed to a very Practical Business Man, Amos J. Walker" by James Whitcomb Riley online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Master of masters in the days of yore, / When art met insult, with no law's redress; / When Law itself insulted Righteousness, / And Ignorance thine own scholastic lore, / And thou thine own judicial office more, -- / What master living now canst love thee less, / Seeing thou didst thy greatest art repress / And leave the years its riches to restore / To us, thy long neglectors. Yield us grace / To make becoming recompense, and dawn / On us thy poet-smile; nor let us trace, / In fancy, where the old-world myths have gone, / The shade of Shakespeare, with averted face, / Withdrawn to uttermost oblivion.