Explore "The Silver Lining" by Oliver Herford on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When poets sing of lovers' woes, / And blighted lives and throbs and throes / And yearnings -- goodness only knows / It's all a pose.
I am a poet too, you know, / I too was young once long ago, / And wrote such stuff myself, and so / I ought to know.
I too found refuge from Despair / In sonnets to Amanda's fair / White brow or Nell's complexion rare / Or Titian hair --
Which, when she scorned, did I resign / To flames, and go into decline? / Not much! When sonnets fetched per line / Enough to dine.
So, reader, when you read in print / A poet's woe -- beware and stint / Your tears -- and take this gentle hint / It is his mint.
When Julia's "_fair as flowery mead_," / Or when she "_makes his heart-strings bleed_," / Know then she's furnishing his feed / Or fragrant weed --
And even as you read -- who knows? / Like cannibal that eats his foes, / He dines off Julia's "_heart that froze_," / Or "_cheek of Rose_. "