Bert Leston Taylor

To the Proof Room

"O MEN of dark and dismal fate,"
    A prey to typographic terrors,
O you who labor long and late,
    Correcting other people's errors --
Think not I do not realize
How much I owe your Argus-eyes.

More times than one you've fixed for me
    Some flaw in my imperfect "copy"
Or pointed out indulgently
    A line or two distinctly sloppy,
Or marked (how oft I'd hate to say)
An accent in the word 'café.'

Although at times I may appear
    A trifle querulous and hateful,
I hope in this to make it clear
    I am, and always have been, grateful.
I only ask, O Argus-eyes,
Don't decorate that last 'revise'!

How many are the breaks you mend!
    How frequently are you of service!
And few who read this comprehend
How tense your work, how close and
          nervous.
I understand and sympathize --
Yet beg, keep off that last 'revise!'

Because, to your judicious sight,
    A sentence may be in confusion,
Don't feel that you must make it right
    Oh leap not to that vain conclusion!
Therein resides, as like as not,
A joke -- a feeble joke, God wot --

But still a joke, whose life depends
    Perchance upon a single letter;
And though the line your eye offends,
    Seek not, I beg, to make it better.
When I have left the office roof
Oh spare, oh spare that final proof!

In closing I would voice to you
    My high esteem of your vocation,
And incidentally renew
    My everlasting obligation
For marking (every other day)
That accent in the word 'café.'