My life has been a sacrifice
        Unto the art of verse,
And I have paid the awesome price
        Though life was made the worse;
Because, though it were never nice
        And made me tense and terse,

It were the thing the Lord decree
        By heaven up above,
That I might dwell in misery
        And unrequited love,
And but a mockery of me
        The whole of writing prove.

Therefore, dear Lord, though it be light
        I beg to put away
My “labor and my leisure” quite
        To have no more to say,
And all these verses I endite
        Disperse as ocean spray.