To write, or not to write...

I have been rearranging bookshelves, which means becoming distracted by books. My great aunt Annie Laurie Snorf's journals are on my shelves, and as I was moving them, I flipped open her handtyped poems and found this, which made me smile:

The Amateur's Soliloquy

To write, or not to write, that is the question;
Whether it is nobler to keep one's ravings and
Brainstorms to one's self, or to take up a pen and
With a stroke or two, preserve them. To write, compose,
No more; and by that decision to save the public from
The shock which reading makes it heir to. To write,
Perchance to sell! Aye, there's the rub; for when we
Write what dreams will come of the heights we hope to gain
By our good pen. There's the respect that makes
Calamity of budding authors; for who would help bear the
Scoffs and sneers of editors, the pangs of unappreciated
Genius, the hope delayed, the insolence of critics, but
That the thought of future greatness goads us on? Who'd
These burdens bear, to toil and sweat over a rattling
Typewriter, but for the hope that we may one day find
And editor from whose office no manuscripts are ere
Returned, fires our ambition and makes us rather burn
The midnight oil than die unknown, unsung. Thus ambition
Doth make martyrs of so many.




(photo from Sandovals Signpost (Scroll down or run a "find" on Snorf)