THE WAIL OF THE HACK WRITER.

Ah, dreary is the toil for dull And shallow thought—the chaff-choked grain, That comes from just beneath the skull, Not from the brain within the brain. But all the dull, chaff-nourished tribe Must have its favorite food of bran, And he who writes must let the scribe Murder the poet in the man. Oft must he stem the tides that roll From thought’s interior deep, and, dead To their far voices, sell his soul— No, not for gold, for bread. And he must leave the heights that shine And hasten down their arduous steeps To feed the million-throated swine, That gulps its garbage and then sleeps. Sam Walter Foss.