In Youth I Dreamed, As Other Youths Have Dreamt, Of Love, And Thrummed An Amateur Guitar To Verses Of My Own,--A Stout Attempt To Hold Communion With The Evening Star I Wrote A Sonnet, Rhymed It, Made It Scan. Ah Me! How Trippingly Those Last Lines Ran.-- O Hesperus! O Happy Star! To Bend O'Er Helen'S Bosom In The Tranced West, To Match The Hours Heave By Upon Her Breast, And At Her Parted Lip For Dreams Attend-- If Dawn Defraud Thee, How Shall I Be Deemed, Who House Within That Bosom, And Am Dreamed? For Weeks I Thought These Lines Remarkable; For Weeks I Put On Airs And Called Myself A Bard: Till On A Day, As It Befell, I Took A Small Green Moxon From The Shelf At Random, Opened At A Casual Place, And Found My Young Illusions Face To Face With This:--'Still Steadfast, Still Unchangeable, Pillow'D Upon My Fair Love'S Ripening Breast To Feel For Ever Its Soft Fall And Swell, Awake For Ever In A Sweet Unrest; Still, Still To Hear Her Tender-Taken Breath, And So Live Ever,--Or Else Swoon To Death.' O Gulf Not To Be Crossed By Taking Thought! O Heights By Toil Not To Be Overcome! Great Keats, Unto Your Altar Straight I Brought My Speech, And From The Shrine Departed Dumb. --And Yet Sometimes I Think You Played It Hard Upon A Rather Hopeful Minor Bard.