Explore "Publishers' Preface" by Harry Graham on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Gentle Reader, who so patiently have waited / For such viands as your poet can provide, / (Which, as critics have occasionally stated, / Must be trying to a delicate inside,) / Once again are opportunities afforded / Of a banquet, or a _dejeuner_ at least, / Once again your toleration is rewarded / By a literary feast!
You may think that Rudyard Kipling's work is stronger, / Or that Chaucer's may be rather more mature; / Byron's lyrics are indubitably longer, / Robert Browning's just a trifle more obscure; / But 'tis certain that no poems are politer, / Or more fitted for perusal in the home, / Than the verses of the unassuming writer / Of this memorable tome!