One of the Curiosities of Literature
’Twas evening, and loud raged the autumn blast,
As in an Author’s darken’d room I stood.
It was a sight to stir the pitying blood;
His soul seemed struggling with some trouble vast;
His thin hand held a pen—his eye, downcast,
Traced its slow movement o’er the blotted sheet;
His air was wild—his heart, I heard it beat!
Lone, pale, he sat, a spectre of the past,
Like Werner when the waters round him throng,
Or like the Banish’d Lord. His heavy task
Weighs on his brain—ah! when may it be done!
“What write you, troubled spirit?” then I ask;
In thrilling tones he said—“A Comic Song,
’Tis for the Jolly Sandboy, No. 1.”
Here we stopped to take up another passenger, “his first appearance in our stage,” though evidently an experienced literary traveller. We all welcomed the new arrival; and Mr. Quickly (for this was his name) pretty soon began to convince us of his qualifications for a pleasant companionship along the road of life. We pass by what he said of ourselves, with the bare remark, that like Falstaff’s story, “it was worth the listening;” but still worthier of it was this, which he recounted to us under the title of