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Title: The Dilettant
Author: Edmund Vance Cooke [
More Titles by Cooke]
To lie outright in the light of day
I'm not sufficiently skilful,
But I practice a bit, in an amateur way,
The lie which is hardly wilful;
The society lie and the business lie
And the lie I have had to double,
And the lie that I lie when I don't know why
And the truth is too much trouble.
For this I am willing to take your blame
Unless you have sometimes done the same.
To be a fool of an A1 brand
I'm not sufficiently clever,
But I often have tried my 'prentice hand
In a callow and crude endeavor;
A fool with the money for which I've toiled,
A fool with the word I've spoken,
And the foolish fool who is fooled and foiled
On a maiden's finger broken.
If you never yourself have made a slip,
I'm willing to watch you curl your lip.
And yet my blood and my bone resist
If you dub me fool and liar.
I set my teeth and double my fist
And my brow is flushed with fire.
You I deny and you I defy
And I vow I will make you rue it;
And I lie when I say that I never lie,
Which proves me a fool to do it!
You may jerk your thumb at me and grin
If liar and fool you never have been.
[The end]
Edmund Vance Cooke's poem: Dilettant
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