The careless page on lamp-stand resting,

With pure white the glow reflecting,

Catches the sore wand’ring stranger’s eye,

And keeps it there without a sigh.

He reads thereon a poet’s verses,

Sore reflecting many hearses,

That should have rightly never rolléd,

Bearing corpses cowl- and hooded.



“Oh, the manner that he writes in!”



Thus the words that cross his cracking lips,

While tears run down to fill the rips.

Then eye, though dimmed, still struggling onward,

Next reads words that turn him upward,

Looking to the bright heav’nly places,

Where God with parted soul paces,

And—leaning down through clouds—soft touches,

Man’s heart so now again he blushes.



“What a manner that he writes in!”



“What god-like genius inspires him so,

Such lofty heights to rise unto?

Do Muses bright surround him—ringéd

In fair halo slight and gilded?

Or warrior-like hews he his figures,

Out of flesh and blood by measures,

‘Til the beauty shining forth o’erwhelms,

All other mortal verséd poems?”



“Which the manner that he writes in?”



Weary much from traveling afar,

The stranger sleeps him under star,

And as he dreams he sees the poet

—Yet in thought he does not know it--

Who sitting desk-bound looks about him,

Searching for poetic fountain;

And ne’er receiv’d he supernal aid,

But from this life poetry made:


That broad noble brow in thought contracts:

The genius broods; his mind he wracks.

Then eye with pure, clear light shines—spilling

Evanescent* light, so thrilling,

And lip with rev’rent murm’ring carries

Sweet words to ear and gentle lays,

While pen—by trembling fingers wielded--

Marks the page to make sure-founded;



This, the manner that he writes in.