“Do you remember the poetic speech, in verse and prose, that William Winter[60] made at the banquet in Lafayette place?” I asked.
“Yes, indeed,” Irving replied. “The two stanzas with which he introduced it were singularly musical, I thought.”
“Here they are. I wanted him to write out the heads of his speech for me; but he had only written down his verses, and here they are, as dainty as they are fraternal.
I.
“‘If we could win from Shakespeare’s river
The music of its murmuring flow,
With all the wild-bird notes that quiver
Where Avon’s scarlet meadows glow;
If we could twine with joy at meeting