Your various talents, Goldenson, command
    Respect: you are a poet and can draw.
  It is a pity that your gifted hand
    Should ever have been raised against the law.
  If you had drawn no pistol, but a picture,
  You would have saved your throttle from a stricture.

  About your poetry I'm not so sure:
    'Tis certain we have much that's quite as bad,
  Whose hardy writers have not to endure
    The hangman's fondling. It is said they're mad:
  Though lately Mr. Brooks (I mean the poet)
  Looked well, and if demented didn't show it.

  Well, Goldenson, I am a poet, too—
    Taught by the muses how to smite the harp
  And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you
    And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp.
  But let me say, with no desire to taunt you,
  I never murder even the girls I want to.

  I hold it one of the poetic laws
    To sing of life, not take. I've ever shown
  A high regard for human life because
    I have such trouble to support my own.
  And you—well, you'll find trouble soon in blowing
  Your private coal to keep it red and glowing.

  I fancy now I see you at the Gate
    Approach St. Peter, crawling on your belly,
  You cry: "Good sir, take pity on my state—
    Forgive the murderer of Mamie Kelly!"
  And Peter says: "O, that's all right—but, mister,
  You scribbled rhymes. In Hell I'll make you
       blister!"