I try to touch the public taste, <br /> For thus I earn my daily bread. <br />I try to write what folks will paste <br /> In scrap books after I am dead. <br /> By Public Craving I am led. <br />(I' sooth, a most despotic leader) <br /> Yet, though I write for Tom and Ned, <br />I've never seen an average reader. <br /> <br />The Editor is good and chaste, <br /> But says: (Above the public's head; <br />This is _too_ good; 'twill go to waste. <br /> Write something commonplacer- <br /> Ed.) <br /> Write for the average reader, fed <br />By pre-digested near-food's feeder, <br /> But though my high ideals have fled, <br />I've never _seen_ an average reader. <br /> <br />How many lines have been erased! <br /> How many fancies have been shed! <br />How many failures might be traced <br /> To this-this average-reader dread! <br /> I've seen an average single bed; <br />I've seen an average garden-weeder; <br /> I've seen an average cotton thread- <br />I've _never_ seen an average _reader_. <br /> <br /> <br />L'ENVOI <br /> <br /> <br />Most read of readers, if you've read <br /> The works of any old succeeder, <br />You know that he, too, must have said: <br /> 'I've never seen an Average Reader.'<br /><br />Franklin P. Adams<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-ballade-of-the-average-reader/
