the following note being annexed:—"Mr. Murray,—Choose which of the two epithets, 'fancied,' or 'airy,' may be the best; or, if neither will do, tell me, and I will dream another." The poet's dream was, it must be owned, lucky,—"prophetic" being the word, of all others, for his purpose.[108]
I shall select but one more example, from the additions to this poem, as a proof that his eagerness and facility in producing, was sometimes almost equalled by his anxious care in correcting. In the long passage just referred to, the six lines beginning "Blest as the Muezzin's strain," &c., having been despatched to the printer too late for insertion, were, by his desire, added in an errata page; the first couplet, in its original form, being as follows:—
"Soft as the Mecca-Muezzin's strains invite
Him who hath journey'd far to join the rite."
In a few hours after, another scrap was sent off, containing the lines thus—
"Blest as the Muezzin's strain from Mecca's dome,
Which welcomes Faith to view her Prophet's tomb"—
with the following note to Mr. Murray:—
"December 3. 1813.
"Look out in the Encyclopedia, article Mecca, whether it is there or at Medina the Prophet is entombed. If at Medina, the first lines of my alterration must run—
"Blest as the call which from Medina's dome
Invites Devotion to her Prophet's tomb," &c.