Explore "The Poem Speaks" by Franklin P. Adams on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
(Cut this out in either case.)
Poet, ere you write me, / Stem the flowing ink; / Or that you indite me / Pause upon the brink.
Strummer of the lyre / Maker of the tune, / Give me a desire -- / Bless me with a boon.
Let me be a rondeau / With a sweet refrain, / Or an aliquando / Sonnet to the rain;
Let me be a lyric / Tenuous as air, / Or an a la Viereck / Passion song to hair;
Ballad, epic, quatrain, / Couplet -- ay, a line -- / "Let it rain or not rain, / Let it storm or shine."
Shape me as you list to, / Glorious or small; / Put a comic twist to / Anything at all.
Only give me fame that / Never, never dies, / Christen me a name that / Reaches to the skies.
This is my ambition: / Not the greatest rhyme, / Not the first position / On the page of time --
But, O poet, steep me, / Till, with gum and hooks, / Womenfolk will keep me / In their pocket-books!