If ’twere I, or mere wind, through her tripod was blowing;
Let his mind once get head in its favourite direction,
And the torrent of verse bursts the dams of reflection,
While, borne with the rush of the metre along,
The poet may chance to go right or go wrong,
Content with the whirl and delirium of song;
Then his grammar’s not always correct, nor his rhymes,
And he’s prone to repeat his own lyrics sometimes,
Not his best, though, for those are struck off at white-heats,
When the heart in his breast like a trip-hammer beats,