1.

Ours is a faster, quicker age:
Yet erst in Goldsmith's homely Wakefield Vicarage,
While Lady Blarney, from the West End, glozes
'Mid the Primroses,
Fudge! cries Squire Thornhill,
Much to the wonder of young greenhorn Moses.
Such word of scorn ill
Matches the " Wisdom Fair " thy whim proposes
To hold in Cornhill.

2.

With Fudge, or Blarney, or the " Thames on Fire; "
Treat not thy buyer;
But proffer good material —
A genuine Cereal,
Value for twelvepence, and not dear at twenty.
Such wit replenishes thy horn of plenty.

3.

Nor wit alone dispense,
But sense;
And with thy sparkling Xerez
Let us have Ceres.
Of loaf thou hast no lack,
Nor set, like Shakespeare's zany, forth
With lots of sack,
Of bread one pennyworth.

4.

Sprightly, and yet sagacious,
Funny, yet farinaceous,
Dashing, and yet methodical —
So may thy periodical,
On this auspicious morn,
Exalt its horn,
Throned on the Hill of Corn:

5.

Of aught that smacks of sect, surplice, or synod.
Be thy grain winnow'd!
Nor deign to win one laugh
With empty chaff.
Shun aught o'er which dullard or bigot gloats;
Nor seek our siller
With meal from Titus Oates,
Or flour of Joseph Miller.

6.

There's corn in Egypt still
(Pilgrim from Cairo to Cornhill!),
Give each his fill.
But, all comers among,
Treat best the young;
Fill the big brother' knapsacks from thy bins,
But slip the cup of Love in Benjamin's.

7.

Next as to those
Who bring their lumbering verse or ponderous prose
To where good Smith and Elder
Have so long held their
Well-garnished Cornhill storehouse —
Bid them not bore us,
Tell them instead
To take their load next street, the Hall of Lead!

8.

Only one word besides.
As he who tanneth hides
Stocketh with proper implements his tannery;
So thou, Friend! do not fail
To store a stout corn-flail,
Ready for use, within thy Cornhill granary.
Of old thou walk'd abroad,
Prompt to right wrongs, Caliph Haroun al Rashid:
Deal thus with fraud.
Or Job, or Humbug — thrash it!

9.

Courage, old Friend! long found
Firm at thy task, nor in first purpose fickle:
Up! choose thy ground,
Put forth thy shining sickle; —
Shun the dense underwood
Of Dunce or Dunderhood;
But reap North, South, East, Far West.
The world-wide Harvest!