Lines Composed a Few Yards from Schlachtensee, With Apologies to W.W.

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I read
These pages, rolled from their printing-press
With a rotary hum.—Once again
Do I behold those last and polished drafts
That many a wild scene describe,
Acts the more connected to themes
And th’ arguments of the plays.
The day is come when I again review
Here, under Frumious name, and mark
These plots of novels bound, these biographies
Which in these bindings, with their full-told lives
Are kept on two small shelves, and lose themselves
‘Mid tales and mysteries. Once again I see
These fantasies, this science fiction, splendid works
Of planets near and far, fantastic fables,
Beasts in their secret lairs; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from the wizard’s pipe!
Their affairs unmeddled, in chapters new,
Or of some Reader’s room, where in plush comfort
The Reader sits alone.