nife
And that took the blade!

And as a cap-sheaf came the thought of differentiating the
whole verse[8] by an Italicized setting! That is almost the last
word of the conception of poet-printer.

[8] Reproduced in facsimile.

The dogged persistency that Allison applied to the completion of this
masterpiece has always won my deepest admiration. And the admiration of
many others too, for this poem, first publicly printed in the Louisville
_Courier-Journal_, has been reprinted in one form or another, in almost
every newspaper in the country and has an honored place in many scrap
books. What great and painstaking effort was encompassed in its composition
only one can know even partly who has been privileged to "peep behind the
scenes" at the "properties of the literary _histrio_"--the manuscript notes
and memoranda, a few of which accompany this volume in facsimile.

IF THERE _is_ CONTROVERSY!

If any one in this wide, old world, after reading the wealth of evidence in
this little volume, still thinks Young E. Allison did not write "Derelict,"
let him come to me like a man and say so and I'll give him a good swift
stab in the eye, with my eye, and say: "You don't want to be convinced."
This includes the editor of _The New York Times Book Review_. When he made
an egregious blunder by stating that "Derelict" was an unskilled sailor's
jingle, a wave of protest reached him. He then printed Walt Mason's letter
describing the poem as a work of art and altered his editorial
characterization of it to "famous old chanty." In the same breath he wrote
that it was not likely that Mr. Allison was the author--but why not likely?
It is plain that somebody must have written it. Nobody else's name had ever
been associated with it. The _Times_ man had nobody to suggest as the
author. Why, then, maintain that Mr. Allison was not the author? His sole
reason is that the "Bowdlerized" and bastard version which he printed had
been _copied from a manuscript written into an old book printed in 1843_!
What does the ink say about dates? What do the pen marks say? Great gods
and little fishes! If ever I shall desire to antiquitize a modernity I'll
copy it into an old book and send a transcript to that delightful Babe of
the Woods of _The New York Times Book Review_.

When _Rubric_, a Chicago magazine venture of attractiveness, but doomed in
advance to failure, published Allison's poem under the title "On Board the
Derelict," I