[In the new History of American Literature it is stated that Robert Treat Paine, the Boston poet (1773-1811), enjoyed such a reputation “that he could command five dollars a line for his verse, a price never before approached in America, and perhaps never since equalled.”]
Say, is it true, O priceless Ella Wheeler,
That you, the blameless Sappho of the West,
Stricken humanity’s most potent healer,
Consoler of the doubting and distressed,
Passion’s intense, impeccable revealer,
Of all best-sellers quite the very best,
Than Tupper’s self far sweeter and sublimer,
Were equalled by an early Boston rhymer?
It cannot be that such ecstatic yearning,