MANAGER

Chiefly, enough of incident prepare! 
They come to look, and they prefer to stare. 
Reel off a host of threads before their faces,
So that they gape in stupid wonder:  then
By sheer diffuseness you have won their graces,
And are, at once, most popular of men. 
Only by mass you touch the mass; for any
Will finally, himself, his bit select: 
Who offers much, brings something unto many,
And each goes home content with the effect,
If you’ve a piece, why, just in pieces give it: 
A hash, a stew, will bring success, believe it! 
’Tis easily displayed, and easy to invent. 
What use, a Whole compactly to present? 
Your hearers pick and pluck, as soon as they receive it!

POET

You do not feel, how such a trade debases;
How ill it suits the Artist, proud and true! 
The botching work each fine pretender traces
Is, I perceive, a principle with you.

MANAGER

Such a reproach not in the least offends;
A man who some result intends
Must use the tools that best are fitting. 
Reflect, soft wood is given to you for splitting,
And then, observe for whom you write! 
If one comes bored, exhausted quite,
Another, satiate, leaves the banquet’s tapers,
And, worst of all, full many a wight
Is fresh from reading of the daily papers. 
Idly to us they come, as to a masquerade,
Mere curiosity their spirits warming: 
The ladies with themselves, and with their finery, aid,
Without a salary their parts performing. 
What dreams are yours in high poetic places? 
You’re pleased, forsooth, full houses to behold? 
Draw near, and view your patrons’ faces! 
The half are coarse, the half are cold. 
One, when the play is out, goes home to cards;
A wild night on a wench’s breast another chooses: 
Why should you rack, poor, foolish bards,
For ends like these, the gracious Muses? 
I tell you, give but more—­more, ever more, they ask: 
Thus shall you hit the mark of gain and glory. 
Seek to confound your auditory! 
To satisfy them is a task.—­
What ails you now?  Is’t suffering, or pleasure?

POET

Go, find yourself a more obedient slave! 
What! shall the Poet that which Nature gave,
The highest right, supreme Humanity,
Forfeit so wantonly, to swell your treasure? 
Whence o’er the heart his empire free? 
The elements of Life how conquers he? 
Is’t not his heart’s accord, urged outward far and dim,
To wind the world in unison with him? 
When on the spindle, spun to endless distance,
By Nature’s listless hand the thread is twirled,
And the discordant tones of all existence
In sullen jangle are together hurled,