Took out the shaft, ordained my heart to shiver,
And bent his sinewy bow upon his knee,
Saying, "Poet, here's a work beseeming thee."
O, woe is me! he never shoots but hits,
I burn, love in my idle bosom sits:
Let my first verse be six, my last five feet:
Farewell stern war, for blunter poets meet!
Elegian muse, that warblest amorous lays,
Girt my shine[132] brow with seabank myrtle sprays.[133]30