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.