Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.
By PaperBenjamin Franklin (17061790)
S
Whose hints show’d meaning, whose allusions care,
By one brave stroke to mark all human kind,
Call’d clear blank paper every infant mind;
Where still, as opening sense her dictates wrote,
Fair virtue put a seal, or vice a blot.
Methinks a genius might the plan pursue.
I (can you pardon my presumption?) I—
No wit, no genius, yet for once will try.
The wants of fashion, elegance, and use.
Men are as various; and if right I scan,
Each sort of paper represents some man.
Nice as a band-box were his dwelling-place:
He ’s the gilt paper, which apart you store,
And lock from vulgar hands in the ’scrutoire.
Are copy-paper, of inferior worth;
Less prized, more useful, for your desk decreed,
Free to all pens, and prompt at every need.
Starve, cheat, and pilfer, to enrich an heir,
Is coarse brown paper; such as pedlars choose
To wrap up wares, which better men will use.
Health, fame, and fortune, in a round of joys.
Will any paper match him? Yes, throughout,
He ’s a true sinking-paper, past all doubt.
Deems this side always right, and that stark naught;
He foams with censure; with applause he raves—
A dupe to rumors, and a tool of knaves;
He ’ll want no type his weakness to proclaim,
While such a thing as foolscap has a name.
Who picks a quarrel, if you step awry,
Who can’t a jest, or hint, or look endure:
What is he? What? Touch-paper to be sure.
Good, bad, rich, poor, much read, not read at all?
Them and their works in the same class you ’ll find;
They are the mere waste-paper of mankind.
She ’s fair white-paper, an unsullied sheet;
On which the happy man, whom fate ordains,
May write his name, and take her for his pains.
’T is the great man who scorns a little thing,
Whose thoughts, whose deeds, whose maxims are his own,
Form’d on the feelings of his heart alone:
True genuine royal-paper is his breast:
Of all the kinds most precious, purest, best.