I SEIZED my pen in frenzied mood,

Some tuneful strains to write;

But ere their form took fixed shape,

All vanished from my sight.

And long I strove to call again

Those lines so vague and fair;

And still my mind the blanker grew,

And dark as midnight air.

I looked up to the heaven above,

Then at the earth below;

I dipped my pen again in ink,

But still it was no go.

I sought to aid my tongue-tied muse,

And got a book of hymns;

And lest for words I then should lack,

I oped "Soule's Synonymes."

And now a pause with pen in air,

And deep excogitation,

When, lo! there beamed upon my soul

The following lucubration: -

"Ideas like to the fleecy clouds

Oft seen on summer day,

Fair shadows drifting through the sky

In evanescent play,

"Strange forms and shapes of things unknown" -

But here full short I stopped;

And down from the fair fleecy clouds

To hard bare earth I dropped.

And notwithstanding helps and hymns,

And every strained endeavor,

My muse is still a voiceless muse,

And mute I fear forever.