I saw him, like a cloistered monk, at night, among his books,
He read and mused and wrote, with troubled, earnest looks;
Then late and weary sought his couch—I could not turn away,
For still with earnest, troubled looks the restless sleeper lay.
Then Fancy, by some magic art, the sleeper’s brain laid bare,
O Heaven, it seemed a universe had been concentred there!
The semblance of all outer things in miniature was there,
And, working each a wondrous art, all spirits, foul and fair.
Uncertain forms traversed a plain, far-reaching as the sight,
Whereon, what seemed a “mount of pain,” uprose in misty light.