Many and many a year ago
I heard of those ancient rhymers,
Those builders of our poetic lore,
The grand old vanished timers,
Were always born and never made;
That they by inspiration bade
The eulogies and melodies
From the spirit's emotions rise,
Filling the earth, the air, the skies
With beings from their paradise,
Of esthetic thought and rapture.
Then the muses chased the poets down
From infancy to hoariness,
With the genius' proffered crown
And surprised them in their idleness
With the coronation brilliancy
Of sweet poetic ecstacy,
When the metrical song moved along
In melody's natural measure.
A radient royal pleasure,
Which the favored took at leisure
Without the minutest effort.
That this is true I sometimes feel,
And write a feeble line or two,
Whene'er the muses o'er me steal
And I fain would strike the lyre too:
But that 'always born, never made,'
From the fanciful flight have stayed,
Brilliant spondee and sweet touchee,
Awaiting the inspiring tole,
To move the music of my soul
To the cadence of the poet's role,
Of proficiency without toil.
No, Nature has no favored ones,
All are what themselves would be;
Through endless toil Ambition's sons
Adorn themselves with victory:
So I will write it, right or wrong,
Everyone shall hear the song,
I wish to sing of Evylin;
The chaste and lovely Evylin,
Tho' all the measure set therein
Is not what it should have been,
To make the Criticaster's poem.