Explore "Found Wanting" by Carolyn Wells on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
There lived a wondrous sculptor once, a genius in his way, / Named Phidias Praxiteles Canova Merryday. / He sat within his studio and said, "I really must / Begin a Rhodian anaglyptic ceroplastic bust.
"My customers demand them, their fame rings near and far, / But then, alas, the trouble is, I don't know what they are. / Though I could carve a Venus or a Belvedere with ease, / My wondrous skill is lacking when it comes to carving these.
"I cast and cut and chisel, I model and I mould, / I copy poses picturesque from studies new and old; / In marble, bronze, and potter's clay, in wax and wood and stone / I carve the old-time statues with improvements of my own.
"I have Apollo on a horse, Minerva on a wheel, / Hercules going fishing with his basket and his creel. / A Mercury on roller-skates, Diana with a hat, / And Venus playing tennis with Achilles at the bat.
"Yet these my customers pass by, and ask with interest keen, / For things with long and tiresome names, -- I don't know what they mean. / And so I let my hammers hang, and let my chisels rust, / For I cannot do an anaglyptic ceroplastic bust. "