THE inner life of a poet is an enigma to the ordinary mortal. He is regarded as a curious being who rarely descends to the commonplace things of earth, and when he does so, his visits are supposed to be of short duration. My own experiences on this subject may help to change this opinion in a slight degree.

My poems are usually written in a strain just the contrary of my feelings. For instance, just after a delightful dinner (and it takes a poet to appreciate the dainties that a good cook can prepare), when I felt perfectly at peace with man and beast, I wrote the following somewhat dolorous effusion: -

Ah! where are they, those days I long have cherished?

Why must I sit and weep my hapless lot?

The friends I loved too soon, alas! have perished,

And I am left deserted and forgot.

Amid my grief I feel the pangs of hunger,

And mourn the smiles that once shone round my board;

I gnaw my crust, and think, when I was younger,

Of all the gems bestowed from friendship's hoard.

Now, if I live, or if I die, what matter?

Fast swooping down I feel the bird of doom;

And I shall leave this world of wrong and clatter,

To rest unmourned for in the dismal tomb.

This was first published in the poetical columns of a country newspaper, and I shall not soon forget how I laughed in my sleeve, when my aunt, a dear sympathetic creature, read it to me, with tears in her eyes. "The author of that," said she, "must have been in deep affliction." I did not destroy the illusion for her by disclosing my hand in the affair.