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My tintinabulum of rhyming.[2]

What then occurs? A lucky hit—

I’ve found a substitute for wit;

On Homer’s pinions mounting high,

I’ll drink Pierian puddle dry.[3]

Beddoes (bless the good doctor) has

Sent me a bag full of his gas,[4]

Which snuffed the nose up, makes wit brighter,

And eke a dunce an airy writer.

With this a brother bard, inflated,

Was so stupendously elated,

He tower’d, like Garnerin’s balloon,

Nor stopp’d, like half wits, at the moon:

But scarce had breath’d three times before he

Was hous’d in heaven’s high upper story,[5]

Where mortals none but poets enter,

Above where Mah’met’s ass dar’d venture.

Strange things he saw, and those who know him

Have said that, in his Epic Poem,[6]

To be complete within a year hence,

They’ll make a terrible appearance.

And now, to set my verses going,

Like “Joan of Arc,” sublimely flowing,

I’ll follow Southey’s bold exemple,

And snuff a sconce full, for a sample.

Good Sir, enough! enough already!

No more, for Heaven’s sake!—steady!—steady!