Recovering what we lost we know not how,

The faculties that seemed reduced to naught,

Expression, and the privilege of thought.

THE COLUBRIAD

Close by the threshold of a door nailed fast,

Three kittens sat; each kitten looked aghast.

I, passing swift and inattentive by,

At the three kittens cast a careless eye;

Not much concerned to know what they did there;

Not deeming kittens worth a poet’s care.