took. I look back upon it at times with, a gloomy kind of envy; for
while it lasted, I had many, many hours of pure happiness. Dream not,
Coleridge, of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy till
you have gone mad! All now seems to me vapid,--comparatively so. Excuse
this selfish digression. Your "Monody" [3] is so superlatively excellent
that I can only wish it perfect, which I can't help feeling it is not
quite. Indulge me in a few conjectures; what I am going to propose would
make it more compressed and, I think, more energetic, though, I am
sensible, at the expense of many beautiful lines. Let it begin, "Is this
the land of song-ennobled line?" and proceed to "Otway's famished form;"
then, "Thee, Chatterton," to "blaze of Seraphim;" then, "clad in
Nature's rich array," to "orient day;" then, "but soon the scathing
lightning," to "blighted land;" then, "sublime of thought," to "his
bosom glows;" then

"But soon upon his poor unsheltered head
Did Penury her sickly mildew shed;
Ah! where are fled the charms of vernal grace,
And joy's wild gleams that lightened o'er his face."

Then "youth of tumultuous soul" to "sigh," as before. The rest may all
stand down to "gaze upon the waves below." What follows now may come
next as detached verses, suggested by the "Monody," rather than a part
of it. They are, indeed, in themselves, very sweet;

"And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng,
Hanging enraptured on thy stately song!"

in particular, perhaps. If I am obscure, you may understand me by
counting lines. I have proposed omitting twenty-four lines; I feel that