To what wonderful heights she could soar.
Recumbent before him, straight dropt the sweet maid,
And expanding the wings of her bird
“Take the Quill of Sublimity, Shakespeare,” she said,
“And go fashion the tear-starting word.”
To Genius he bow’d, as she pluckt forth the Quill,
To the breeze were his vestments unfurl’d,
Like a sun-beam, with Fancy he fled from the hill,
To charm and illumine the world.
For the good of mankind, he rare precepts convey’d,