And now, "Gentle Readers," I'll bid you farewell;
I hope this fine poem will please you--and _sell_.
You'll ne'er lack a friend if you ne'er lack a dime;
May you never grow old till the end of Old Time;
May you never be cursed with an itching for rhyme;
For in spite of your physic, in spite of your plaster,
The rash will break out till you go to disaster--
Which you plainly can see is the case with my Muse,
For she scratches away though she's said her adieus.
Dear Ladies, though last to receive my oblation,
And last in the list of Mosaic creation,
The last is the best, and the last shall be first.
Through Eve, sayeth Moses, old Adam was cursed;
But I cannot agree with you, Moses, that Adam
Sinned and fell through the gentle persuasion of madam.
The victim, no doubt, of Egyptian flirtation,
You mistook your chagrin for divine inspiration,
And condemned all the sex without proof or probation,
As we rhymsters mistake the moonbeams that elate us
For flashes of wit or the holy afflatus,
And imagine we hear the applause of a nation,--
But all honest men who are married and blest
Will agree that the last work of God is the best.
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