Page:The Battle of the Books, and Other Short Pieces.djvu/124

Furnished with paper, pens, and ink,
I gravely sat me down to think:
I bit my nails, and scratched my head,
But found my wit and fancy fled;
Or, if with more than usual pain,
A thought came slowly from my brain,
It cost me Lord knows how much time
To shape it into sense and rhyme;
And, what was yet a greater curse,
Long-thinking made my fancy worse
⁠Forsaken by th' inspiring nine,
I waited at Apollo's shrine;
I told him what the world would say
If Stella were unsung to-day;
How I should hide my head for shame,
When both the Jacks and Robin came;
How Ford would frown, how Jim would leer,
How Sh—r the rogue would sneer,
And swear it does not always follow,
That Semel'n anno ridet Apollo.
I have assured them twenty times,
That Phœbus helped me in my rhymes,
Phœbus inspired me from above,
And he and I were hand and glove.
But finding me so dull and dry since,
They'll call it all poetic licence.
And when I brag of aid divine,
Think Eusden's right as good as mine.