Explore "Envoi" by Harry Graham on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
PROTECTIONIST! (if you exist) / Whose sympathies I can't enlist, / Be sparing of your curses! / Ah, don't abuse my Fiscal VIEWS, / But, out of pity for the Muse, / Look only at my VERSES!
FREE TRADER, too, I beg of you, / Whatever else you think or do, / My lack of skill excuse. Ah! / No doubt my VERSE could not be worse, / And weak the rhymes that I rehearse; / But, then, how sound my VIEWS are!
(Thus may I strengthen -- or convert, / And no one's feelings need be hurt! )