‘When sick of Muse…’

‘When sick of Muse, our follies we deplore,
And promise our best friends to rhyme no more;
We wake next morning in a raging fit,
And call for pen and ink to show our wit.
He serv’d a ‘prenticeship who sets up shop;
Ward tried on puppies and the poor, his drop;
Ev’n Radcliffe’s doctors travel first to France,
Nor dare to practise till they’ve learn’d to dance.
Who builds a bridge that never drove a pile?
(Should Ripley venture, all the world would smile)
But those who cannot write, and those who can,
All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.’