Page:Songs of the Road Doyle.djvu/32

Rh Thus in most repentant mood

Unhappy Peter Wilson stood,

When, with pompous face, self-centred,

Willoughby the critic entered—

He of whom it has been said

He lives a century ahead—

And sees with his prophetic eye

The forms which Time will justify,

A fact which surely must abate

All longing to reincarnate.

'Ah, Wilson,' said the famous man,

Turning himself the walls to scan,

'The same old style of thing I trace,

Workmanlike but commonplace.

Believe me, sir, the work that lives

Must furnish more than Nature gives.

"The light that never was," you know,

That is your mark—but here, hullo!