‘Sir,’ said I (or Madman!), ‘truly your late visit I deplore;
For the fact is, I’m inditing a piece of murky writing,
And so unseeming you came lighting, lighting on my chamber door,
Which was never done before’—here he bolted in the door,
And sat down upon the floor.”
“Then this strange trick beguiling my phrenzy into smiling,
By the cool audacious impudence his brazen features wore—
Tho’ thy hat is old and napless, thou, I said, art sure not sapless,
Young and tender in thy hapless wand’rings from thy mother’s shore;
Tell me why thy business here is on this dark and dismal floor?”