Quoth the Author, ‘Read this o’er.’”
“Much I wonder’d this ambitious youth to see an act so vicious,
Tho’ its answer good deal meaning, I voted him a bore—
For we cannot help believing that no genius living grieving
Ever yet was blind in seeing a Manuscript read o’er
By the ‘Reader’ in a book-shop, or Book-boy in a store,
Yet he cried on, ‘Read it o’er!’”
“Startled at the stillness broken by reply so greenly spoken,
Said I, ‘Before like Poe you flutter you should like Bryant soar
Forc’d from some disaster—perhaps you think to master