A Literary Parable

Nibbs wrote for years, and years, and years —
Poor wight! His harvest was but tears,
For every line he wrote, alack,
Came like a homing-pigeon back,
Until his dwelling was packed full
Of manuscripts unsalable,
And all his walls in endless strips
Were papered with rejection slips.

His cellar held quite twenty score
Of Tales of Love, and maybe more,
And every book-shelf in the place
Ran o'er with stories of the chase.
In bureau drawer, in trunk and chest,
In highboy, lowboy, packed and pressed,
Lay sketches, novelettes, and rhymes,
Which he had penned at sundry times,

He caught the measles, and at last
From out this vale of tears he passed;
But where he went to none can say —
We only know he passed away.
His widow wed again, a wight
Who called the Junkman in one night,
And as waste-paper sold that store
Of stories Nibbs had struggled o'er.

'Twas then there dawned upon the land
A miracle of genius grand —
A man who'd never gone to school,
Yet reeled off tales as from a spool —
An endless spool at that, and who
Though rough the Muses fair could woo,
As did the bards of Queen Bett's age —
The Junkman P OET was the rage.

The Junkman's novels had a sale
That turned the Six Best Sellers pale,
And publishers in frenzied race
Outbid each other in the chase
For storied stuff he had to sell,
And those who got it did right well,
For everywhere folks raved the while
About the Junkman's " splendid style. "

The moral? Well, I've sometimes thunk
He waxeth fat who deals in junk!