He then said unto Willy,
"Place likewise this custard before us."
"There is but little of it; the platter is shallow," replied he; "'t
was suited to Master Ethelbert's appetite. The contents were these:
"'The things whereon thy whole soul brooded in its innermost
recesses, and with all its warmth and energy, will pass unprized and
unregarded, not only throughout thy lifetime but long after. For
the higher beauties of poetry are beyond the capacity, beyond the
vision of almost all. Once perhaps in half a century a single star
is discovered, then named and registered, then mentioned by five
studious men to five more; at last some twenty say, or repeat in
writing, what they have heard about it. Other stars await other
discoveries. Few and solitary and wide asunder are those who
calculate their relative distances, their mysterious influences,
their glorious magnitude, and their stupendous height. 'T is so,
believe me, and ever was so, with the truest and best poetry.
Homer, they say, was blind; he might have been ere he died,--that he
sat among the blind, we are sure.
"'Happy they who, like this young lad from Stratford, write poetry
on the saddle-bow when their geldings are jaded, and keep the desk
for better purposes.
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